Egg Cake (part 2) -- A Medieval Syrian Recipe

Yesterday I wrote about my first attempt at making a medieval Syrian egg cake.  They turned out more like patties and I wasn't convinced I had done it right.  You can read about it here.

I tried it again.  This time I started with 1/2 pound of my homemade sausage (flavor blend #1; you can see the post about it here) and I didn't use cheese inside (honestly, because I forgot!).

First I browned the sausage, breaking it up into smallish pieces.  This was in a big frypan.  While the sausage cooked, I started heating up two small frypans.  I used medium low heat, 3 out of 10.  Once the sausage was ready, I put about one quarter into each small pan, which had been lighted coated with olive oil. 



Then I poured three beaten eggs over the meat in each pan.  This filled the pan nicely.



At this point I patiently waited for the eggs to cook all the way through to the top.  I was concerned about the bottom burning or scorching but I saw no signs of that happening.  It seems the medium low heat was just right.

The recipe says:

Fill the pan with the flavored eggs, leave until dried out, and overturn into a bowl.  Turn it over and fry the other side for a long time.

I wondered how I would do this bowl maneuver; my thought was that any runny egg bits would smear all over the bowl and be difficult to cook.  Now I think "leave until dried out" means really, truly wait until the eggs are cooked all the way through, but I didn't think that when I was right there cooking. 

I managed to wait for the eggs to be cooked all the way for one pan and almost all the way for the other.  Instead of using a bowl, I used the large pan that the sausage was cooked in:  I just flipped the egg cake over into the heated pan.



This is the one that I didn't cook until the top was entirely dry, and you can see that some of the liquid egg splashed out and made the cake look sloppy.  After that egg cooked, I simply cut it off with the spatula to tidy up the cake's look.

The second egg cake was flipped into the pan of the first egg cake.  It was nearly dry on top so there wasn't much that slopped and the cake fit in the pan nicely.



I cooked them both just a little while longer to make sure they were done, then I served them up with toast and the rest of the sausage on the side.  I sprinkled the tops with the spice mix I had used before and some Parmesan cheese.

Homemade Swedish rye bread.  I love cooking.

The Verdict

Definitely more cake-like in its form.  I believe I achieved what the recipe's author intended this time.  

The flavor was fine -- not overcooked eggs and still moist.  The spice mix and cheese on top were good, although I wish I had remembered to put the cheese inside the cake, too.  

The sausage added a nice spice "zing" that I had wished for the first time I tried the recipe.  It still could have used more spice and I think an asiago cheese would have been better.  To me, eggs are pretty bland and need more flavor to make them interesting.  

This would be good to serve to multiple people by cutting it into wedges.  I think it would work for a buffet brunch meal; you could adjust the flavorings to suit your guests just like you would an omelet.  

Success!  Both in flavor and in form.

Egg Cake (part 1) -- A Medieval Syrian Recipe

Yes, I am still exploring Scents and Flavors, translated by Charles Perry.  It is worth it!

ISBN 978-1-4798-5628-2

This time my attention was caught by something that would be good for breakfast or as a main course at any meal, although it was offered in the section on Sour and Salty Pickles.  The category was

The thirty-eighth type is egg dishes and egg cakes, of which there are several kinds.

I chose recipe number 8.125 on page 253:

The second kind.

Take meat, pound, and boil.  When done, pound again finely, and fry in fat.  Mince parsley and put the mean and parsley in a bowl.  Break eggs on top and add hot spices, coriander leaves and coriander seeds, pounded cheese, and Ceylon cinnamon.  Fry this mixture in a pan with olive or sesame oil.  The pan should be round with a high rim and a long handle like the handle of a ladle.  Set on a charcoal fire, spoon in the olive or sesame oil, and wait until the oil is hot, then add the eggs and flavorings -- three eggs and a little of the flavorings and fried meat to each egg cake.  Fill the pan with the flavored eggs, leave until dried out, and overturn into a bowl.  Turn it over and fry the other side for a long time.  Prick with a knife and pour on a little olive or sesame oil and spices.  Turn over every so often as described until done.


My Redaction

1 pound ground pork
1/4 cup minced parsley
6 eggs
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon caraway
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
sesame oil




My Notes

Cook the meat in sesame oil until the pink is gone.  Mix the meat and the parsley in a bowl.

I took the comment about a little meat with three eggs to heart and put 1/3 of the meat mixture in a separate bowl, then cracked six eggs over the top of it.  Then I put the spices and cheese on top of that.

When I mixed them together, I found it was very wet and runny, and the spices clumped together.  It was hard to get it all to mix through thoroughly without lumps of flavoring in some parts and nothing much in others.

You can see the clumps.

I heated more sesame oil in the pan and poured some of the egg-meat mixture in.



It was very runny and made a puddle of eggs with chunks of meat within.  I strongly suspected this is not what was intended.

Turning them over was easy.  They looked like lumpy pancakes.

So I added the rest of the meat mixture to the egg mixture and tried again.

This time they were thicker patties and that made more sense to me.  I ended up making ten of these and serving them for breakfast with some fresh orange slices.  They were cooked only once on each side.  I tried poking a few and putting some sesame oil onto them.  I sprinkled the whole batch with more of the same spices, which were mixed in a little bowl.

If you look closely, you can see the sprinkled spices.

The Verdict

I just don't think I did these correctly.  The more I think about it, the more I believe I should have used a smaller diameter pan and filled it with just one egg cake.  It would be more like an omelet or a fritatta.  Then the whole thing could be cut into wedges or (if small enough) served to one person.

There were some issues with the meat.  Notice that the ground meat was in long tubes, which I did not break up much when cooking.  I think that was a mistake for the patties as I made them.  It might not be a problem with a thicker egg cake.

There was also a problem with the clumping spices.  Most of the egg cake was pretty bland but occasionally I would get a burst of spice flavoring.  In the future, I would use more spice and I would mix it and the cheese thoroughly into the meat before adding the eggs.

My guest taster and I enjoyed eating them, but we both wanted more flavor.  When we included the pickled raisins (see this post), it was much more enjoyable.

Neither one of us liked the cakes with the extra sesame oil poured on it.

Over all I would call it a success because it certainly wasn't a failure, but I am not thrilled with the outcome.  It needs to be done again.  Look again at tomorrow's post for part two.

The leftovers reheated nicely.  That was a bonus!

Pickled Raisins -- A Medieval Syrian Recipe

I am thoroughly enchanted with Scents and Flavors, translated by Charles Perry.

ISBN  978-1-4798-5628-2

The recipes seem so do-able and intriguing, with flavor combinations I would not normally think of using and techniques easily replicated in the modern kitchen.  I previously tried one of its pickled lemon recipes, with great success.  So much so that I continue to keep a jar of it in my refrigerator whenever I can get lemons.  They are an excellent additive to sandwiches as well as a flavorful relish with any sort of cooked meat.  Read my post on it here.

Therefore I was excited to try another recipe.  There are so many I want to try!  I decided to go with another pickled something, and I was inspired to do the pickled raisins after pruning my mint plant.  This recipe, found on page 215, is #8.38 in the section on various types of sour and salty pickles:

The eighth type is raisin pickles, of which there are several kinds

The first kind

Pick over raisins to remove the useless ones, wash the rest, and dry in a sieve.  Take the smallest ones, wash, and pound in a mortar with mint and wine vinegar; when smooth, strain with vinegar several times until nothing is left of the raisins in the sieve.  Take stems of fresh mint and remove the remaining leaves from the stalks.  Put with the raisins into a pickling jar, alternating a layer of raisins and a generous layer of fresh mint until the jar is nearly filled.  Pour in the vinegar that was strained with the raisins.  If too sour, add honey, sugar, or date syrup, according to the disposition of the individual.  Add some mixed spices and ginger, set aside, and use after six or seven days.  If you want, put in petals of Nisibin roses when they are in season.

My Redaction

For the liquid:
52 grams golden raisins
3 grams fresh mint leaves
3/4 cup (6 ounces) white wine vinegar
3/4 teaspoon honey
3/4 teaspoon mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, grains of paradise, pepper, saffron)
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

For the pickle:
More raisins
More fresh mint leaves



My Notes

My goal was to fill one pint canning jar.

I did not use rose petals of any kind.

To make the liquid, I started with the raisins and mint leaves and added 1/2 cup vinegar.

I blended the batch until it was finely pureed.  Then I mixed in the spices.  I tasted it and it was lovely!  Sour, slightly sweet, spicy (especially from the ginger), and very minty.  But it was thick and I suspected it was too thick for what the recipe's author intended.

Thick, like a milkshake

So I added another 1/4 cup vinegar and some honey to balance out the sourness.  This made it thinner but not thin, and I decided it would work.

I took the sterilized jar and put in a layer of raisins, tamped it down a little with a pestle, put on a layer of mint leaves and tamped that.  To fill the jar took five layers of raisins with four layers of mint in between, tamping at each layer.

When I poured the liquid over the top, I realized the problem:  it was too thick to work its way down through the layers to the bottom.  So I took a chopstick and poked it into the layers, mostly around the jar's sides, to encourage the liquid to move to the bottom.  It seemed to work, although I'm not sure how well it got into the middle of the jar.  I kept adding liquid until the jar was full.

Once it seemed full, I put the lid on and then tapped the jar a lot.  I hoped it got more liquid down to the bottom.

I still had a lot of liquid left over, so I decided to fill another jar with the raisin pickle.  This time I used dark raisins instead of the golden.  I also decided to pour some liquid over each layer as I was assembling it (after tamping).  This worked well until I ran out of liquid and still needed a little more to finish filling the jar.  So I put together another raisin/mint/vinegar puree (with dark raisins and without measuring), thinned it with a little more vinegar, and added honey and spices (without measuring).  It tasted good and I used it.

That finished the second jar.

You can see where I switched to the dark raisin puree in the top layer.

Both jars were labeled and put into the refrigerator for a week.


The Verdict

The directions, "strain with vinegar several times until nothing is left of the raisins in the sieve" had
me believe that a thick liquid was acceptable, even though most recipes for items that are pickled are in a fairly runny vinegar base.  If nothing was left, then all of the raisin should be reduced to tiny (strainable) bits.  It is why I blended it instead of straining -- I had that modern advantage and it was a way to get the mixture smooth without having to continue to strain several times.

I mixed the spices into the liquid instead of putting them at the top of the jar because it was so thick.  It seemed like they wouldn't have contact with the raisins below the top if just placed on top.

How was it?

I was surprised to see that the whole mass was thick, not liquidy or sloshy at all.  This made sense in that the raisins (dried grapes) soaked up the liquid.  What I spooned onto my plate was moist but firm and not runny.

This was all dark raisins.

The flavor was amazing.  It was spicy, almost too much at first, but I got used to it quickly.  Cinnamon, ginger, pepper, mint, sweet, sour, and more.  It made me think of chutney with the benefit of being quick and easy to assemble, and uncooked.

Initially I was put off by the whole mint leaves.  Sometimes I got a leaf in my mouth and it seemed too strong.  But after a few servings of pickled raisins, I got used to it and enjoyed it.  I think in the future I will cut them before putting them in the jar.  A chiffonade might work well.

I also tasted the mixture that was with golden raisins.  The flavors were the same -- lovely! -- but I believe the golden raisins were more tender than the dark raisins.  They were both excellent.

My guest taster and I both said, "Wow!  This is good!" as we put the pickle on sandwiches, alongside cooked meat, and sometimes just ate a spoonful.  The flavors pack a punch and really brighten whatever meal they accompany.  Although I might cut back on the ginger just a little bit.

Success!  You should look at this book!

Yum.