Lynn Strong

(Part of the recipe collection from Haroun and the Study of Mischief. But since I have a bad time with the “traditional” corned beef, and so do many vegetarians, pescetarians, and migraine-havers, I thought I’d put this out a bit before St. Patrick’s Day for consideration as an alternative. The image of the cook at the cauldrons is from the kitchen of the Golden Temple at Amritsar. And this is the last of my not-yet-posted recipes from Haroun! Up next: Chai and Charmcraft’s recipes.)

Zirbaj (also seen as zirbaja, with or without an assortment of diacritical marks my eyes are not good enough to distinguish) is the sweet-and-tart-and-rosewater-scented cousin of sikbaj. Sikbaj is almost literally “vinegared stew” and is linguistically and culinarily related to ceviche and escabeche. As ceviche and escabeche’s fish-oriented modern descendants testify, it can be done with fish. Unlike ceviche, sikbaj and zirbaj usually apply heat as well as acid, and the meat can be fish or bird or cow or not even meat at all. Another branch of the sikbaj theory seems to have led toward European blancmange via muhallabiyya and judhab with chicken, rice, milk, sugar, rose water, and almonds. In some parts of Europe its descendants lost its chicken along the way to lean more toward desserts (and the word aspic). In other areas its descendants kept the chicken and rice but lost the milk and sugar.

We get six and a quarter recipes for zirbaj in The Sultan’s Feast alone. (And that’s without counting the sikbaj variants and the chicken-rice-and-vinegar variants and the vinegar-and-honey stews with different names. I do count the “counterfeit” recipes, because counterfeit basically means vegetarian, but one of those is just a mention that the concept exists, hence the quarter.) I’ve also brought in a zirbaj recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook because it gave more helpful information.

Where we run into particular headaches are the measurements: most of the recipes don’t give a measurement at all, and the recipes that do give measurements use measurements like a ratl which could be anywhere from 8 ounces to 8 pounds in different places and based on what is being measured, or an uqiyya that could mean about ten times as much in Aleppo as it does in Egypt. (I am actually behind several of the Wikipedia edits trying to figure out what exactly is meant by a ratl or an uqiyya when you’re reading an Egyptian cookbook as opposed to a Baghdadi cookbook, and trying to figure out what to do when you run into the same recipe in both but don’t know where the recipe started.)

So I’ll give a couple historic recipes and then a rough ballpark for the modern era… “to taste” is going to figure prominently here!

Historic zirbaj recipes with meat

(If you’ve made the atraf al-tib spice mix, one of the simpler variations of the seven in The Sultan’s Cookbook uses sesame oil, sweet almond paste, and atraf al-tib in place of the more intricate separate spices.)

“Take a large plump pullet, slaughter it and do as mentioned above in terms of cleaning it, and so on. Leave it whole and sever its neck. Take the ends of the legs, and push them inside its cavity. Put the bird in a large new pot with salt, sweet olive oil, pepper, coriander seeds, a little cumin and a bit of sliced onion, citron leaves and a sufficient amount of fresh water. Put the pot over a fire to cook and, when it is almost done, colour with a little pounded saffron dissolved in water. Then, pour good vinegar in the pot, as much as you want. Pound four ūqiyas of peeled almonds in a mortar until you get a paste. Check the chicken and, if it is done, add the crushed almonds and stir to dissolve them. Leave the pot on a moderate heat until the almonds have been brought to a boil once or twice. Take good-quality sugar – the same weight as the almonds– and dissolve it in rose water or fresh water. Strain, and pour it into the pot. Taste it and, if you find it too sweet, add vinegar. If it is not sweet enough, add sugar until it is to your liking. Leave the pot on embers to simmer down and to balance the flavours. If you like, you can add split eggs after serving the pullet in a large ceramic bowl. Eat it and enjoy it, Allah the Exalted willing.” (Newman, The Exile’s Cookbook, recipe 195)

“Cut up meat into small pieces, place in the pot and cover with water. Add pieces of cassia, peeled chickpeas, and a bit of salt. When the water has come to a boil, remove the scum. Add sesame oil and the same quantity of wine vinegar, a quarter of the weight of the vinegar in sugar, and finely pounded peeled almonds soaked in rose water. Add the meat and then ground dried coriander, pepper and ground mastic. For colouring, add saffron. Then put peeled and split almonds on top of the dish and sprinkle a little bit of rose water on them. Rub the sides [of the pot] and leave on the fire until [the dish] simmers down. If you like, you can make it with chicken, in which case take a scalded chicken, and wash and joint it. When the pot is bubbling, throw it in with the meat and cook. If you like the sweetness to be prominent, add some sugar or honey, Allah the Almighty willing.” (Newman, The Sultan’s Feast, recipe 16)

Dr. Newman has also blogged about a green zirbaj dish he’s prepared that leaves the chicken whole and uses a very herbal sauce. In his sikbaj taste-testing, he’s shredded the meat and vegetables and it’s less green.

Historic “counterfeit” zirbaj, vegetarian

Vegetarian recipes are often given as medical treatments in these cookbooks, and the beginning of this one does indicate some humoral theory indications for who might benefit from it.

(If you’d like for it to be more protein-ful, you could add the chickpeas from the earlier recipe, or your preferred alternative protein source.)

“Take a few onions, chop them up in the required quantity, throw into a clean pot and place it on over a gentle fire. Add almond oil or fresh sesame oil or good olive oil, depending on the temperaments. Once the onions start to sweat, add a little bit of ground coriander, a little mint, and what is required in terms of spikenard, mastic and cinnamon. Then, add clean vinegar mixed with the required amount of water. Sweeten with sugar and thicken the liquid with smoothly ground peeled almonds. Colour with saffron and rose water. There is no harm in making it with a bit of starch either. [Then,] remove [from the fire].” (Newman, The Sultan’s Feast, recipe 124)

Zirbaj Remixed

In the modern era, slow cookers serve much the same purpose as Shai Madhur’s cauldrons, though clearly on a smaller scale. But you can do this on a stovetop too – or over a fire, if the desire takes you.

Although the directions just say to boil everything, here on this end of time I know how tasty Maillard reactions are. So I’m going to take a page from the vegetarian version’s instructions and interleave it with the meat-containing versions.