The Kitchen

Fish Tajine

Clean the fish and fry it lightly, then arrange it in the baking mold; add onion chopped in slivers and peeled tomatoes cut in slivers, and add butter or ghee, salt, allspice, cinnamon, and a few sour plums; then bake it in the oven until done.

Delicious Kofta

For every uqiyya of meat add one small potato, a beaten egg, a small onion, a little parsley, salt, pepper, allspice, and a spoonful of flour or of ground breadcrumbs.

Grind the meat, the potato, the onion, and the parsley fine in the meat grinder, then add the allspice and the rest of the ingredients and mix them well. Then form it into round or oblong patties, or roll it out and cut it with the heart or star cutter from among the biscuit cutters, and afterward fry it in ghee.

Serve the kofta with cooked peas, or with peas and carrots, or with beans; put the peas in the middle of the dish, with the kofta in a circle around them.

Stuffed Ribs

Take an oke of rib meat and hollow it out with a broad knife so that it becomes easy to stuff; then fill the rib with the stuffing. Then cut it up, put it in the pot, cover it with water, add a spoonful of salt, a head of onion, a few allspice berries, and sticks of cinnamon, and leave it on the fire until done. Then lift it out of the broth and fry it in ghee, or brown it in the oven with a little ghee.

Molded Rice

Grease a mold with ghee and sprinkle in a coating of ground breadcrumbs; then lay down a layer of fluffy rice, and over it a layer of meat fried with pine nuts, a little of the spices, some salt, and a pinch of curry or of hot red pepper; then spread over it another layer of rice. Then add a cup of tomato juice, or half a cup of milk with half a cup of broth. Then spread on a layer of ground ka'k crumbs and bake it in the oven. After baking, turn the mold out onto the serving platter or dish; beat the whites of two eggs or more, spread them over the rice, and bake it in the oven a little. After you take it out of the oven, garnish it with a circle of tomato, with a round slice of cucumber between each piece of tomato, and serve.