Ahrash of Fish
Take a large fish, like the qantûn and the fahl or one like them, scale it and boil it in water and salt, then take it out and remove the backbone and the bones, then pound it until it becomes like the meat of meatballs. Add wheat flour or ground ka'k (biscotti) and the amount of egg needed to gather with it and make it cohere, and pepper, coriander seed, spikenard, cinnamon, some juice from a crushed onion, juice of mint, some juice of murri naqî' and oil, beat it all together until it melts and blends. Then you make ahrash and thin breads the size of a fist or less; make meatballs with it in the form of a fish, fry this ahrash in the frying pan with a lot of oil until it browns, then boil a sauce of vinegar, oil and pounded garlic, that you pour on top.
Ingredients
| 1 lb | fish (haddock) |
| 1.5 | eggs |
| black pepper |
| 1/2 tsp. | ground corriander |
| 1/4 tsp. | ground cinnamon |
| 1/4 c. | onion juice (from 2 onions) |
| 1/2 tsp. | mint juice |
| matzo meal |
| Frying oil |
| |
Sauce
| garlic |
| oil |
| vinegar (cider) |
| |
Steps
Note
From Perry: "Ka'k: One of the most ancient baked goods of the Near East. It's so old we don't know whether the word is Aramaic or Ancient Egyptian. Anyway, it was (and is) a biscuit in the sense of something baked or cooked twice. In one place it has been translated hardtack, which is close enough except that it's usually somewhat sweetened. I have left it untranslated, but often added parenthetically (biscotti), since it resembles Italian biscotti."
Used matzo meal.
qabtûn = grey mullet. Perry, Charles. "Medieval Arab Fish: Fresh, Dried, and Dyed". Fish: Food from the Waters. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 1997, p. 230.
Use haddock.
Very difficult to make onion and mint juice.
Forgot to add the murri (soy sauce)
Not very fishy, needs more of all seasonings.
