Halawat Sha'riyya:

Sweet n'Golden Vermicelli Noodles 

Iraqi Style

حلاوة شعرية

May your days be as sweet and luscious as Halawat Sha'riyya! 

Sha’riyya (also called sha'eeriyya in some Arab countries) is wheat-noodles, similar to angel hair pasta. It is mostly sold in form of balls (also called ‘nests’, see photo below), available at Middle Eastern stores (sometimes labelled ‘thin noodles #1’). For savory dishes, we break it and drop it into soup pots as a thickening agent, or fry it and let it steam with rice, as garnish. And in this enticing dessert of halawat sha'riyya, where it is the main ingredient, we keep the strands relatively long.

The earliest reference I was able to detect for the term sha'riyya/sha'eeriyya was in the 15th-century Syrian cookbook Kitab al-Tibakha (كتاب الطباخة)  by the famous scholar Ibn al-Mubarrid. However, in all probability the pasta he mentioned referred to an orzo-like variety as the name indicates that the pieces looked like barley grains sha'eer (شعير). Sha'riyya and sha'eeriyya designating hair-like pasta must have evolved some time later.

Making thin noodles has a long history in the the Middle East. In the eastern and the western parts of the medieval Islamic world, many types of pasta, dried and fresh, were already familiar foods, the most prevalent  of which were itriya and rishta.

Medieval cook preparing rishta, detail(Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution. S1986.221)

Itriya (إطرية) was described as thin strings of noodles made with stiff unfermented dough (fateer). References to it in cookbooks reveal that it was usually available as dried pasta. We are lucky to have a recipe for making it in the 13th-century Andalusian cookbook Fidhalat al-Khiwan: Semolina or regular flour was made into stiff dough with water and a little salt, and then rolled out thinly on a rectangular board. It was then cut into thin strings, and each string was rolled between the palms as thinly as possible. These strings were left to dry out in the sun (al-Tujeebi, p 91). As for rishta (رشتة), according to the 10th-century physician Ibn Sina, it was the Persian name for itriya, called so because it looked like fine strings. Other sources; however, do point to the fact that whereas itriya was dried noodles, rishta was used fresh.

Whether fresh or dried, these noodles were incorporated into the medieval stews, soups, or eaten as a main hot dish cooked with meat, as we do with pasta nowadays. We also have recipes for cooking them as sweet thick puddings with milk and butter, and sweetened with honey. These sweets came under the category of muhallabiyyat, as in al-Warraq's 10th- century cookbook Kitab al-Tabeekh (Chapter 98). In this book, we also have documented the earliest recipe for a noodle dish. The recipe comes from the famous Baghdadi 9th-century singer Ishaq bin ibrahim al-Mawsili.It involves a rich chicken stew (al-Warraq, chapter 72).

Cooking noodles: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.  S1986.221, detail

Whereas the name rishta is still in circulation today, itriya fell out of use, and it is unsettled as to what it means, although it seems to have had a remarkably long history in the Middle East and the southern and eastern Mediterranean regions. According to 11th-century Arab scholar al-Biruni, itriya was called itreen in Latin and Syriac. From non-Arab sources we know that before the Latin itria was mentioned in Galen (second century AD), it was itrion in Greek.

It seems to me that the location where it was most widely used is the key to its meaning. The Jerusalem Talmud, which dates back to 5th-century AD, mentions “a kind of pasta known as itrium was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries” (Silvano Serventi, Pasta, p. 17). As early as the 8th century, the famous Arab linguist al-Khalil bin Ahmed in his dictionary Al-‘Ayn describes itriya (إطرية) as the specialty food of Ahl al-Sham, that is, people of the Levant in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Now, in the medieval lexicon Lisan al-‘Arab (s.v. طرأ) these people were called Turiyoun (طوريون), i.e. from al-Tur (الطور) al-Sham. And hence itriya. 

Recipe for Halawat Sha'riyya:

(Makes 6 servings)

2 tablespoons butter plus 2 tablespoon oil (such as canola)

6 ounces (175 g) vermicelli wheat noodles (about 7 balls)

2 ¼ cups hot water

A pinch of salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 tablespoon rose water

½ cup broken walnut pieces, toasted

For garnish: 2 tablespoons coarsely ground pistachio

1. Melt butter with oil in a medium heavy pot. Slightly crush noodle balls between your fingers and add them, stirring constantly until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Carefully pour in hot water, and add salt. Stir, and bring to a quick boil, then lower heat and simmer, covered, until the noodles start to soften, 4 to 5 minutes.

2. Add sugar, cardamom, rose water, and walnut. Stir until sugar crystals dissolve. Let the pot simmer, covered, on medium-low, stirring 2 or 3 times, until moisture is absorbed, noodles look glossy, and sugar starts to stick to the bottom of the pot (12 to 15 minutes).

3. Immediately, spread it on a platter, and give it a generous sprinkle of ground pistachio. Serve it warm. Leftovers may be refrigerated and heated for 30 seconds in the microwave when needed.

Enjoy!

Lahm b-'Ajeen

Arabian Counterpart of Italian Pizza

لحم بعجين

It is what it literally means—‘meat with dough’. Well-loved carryout food in the Levant and Iraq, simple, practical and delicious. Equally ubiquitous in Turkey, where it is called lahmacun, which no doubt is a direct borrowing of the Arabic, etymologically and culinarily. 

Lahm b-'ajeen apparently had a long history in the Arab regions, and it seems to have first originated in the Levant. The earliest recipe I could lay my hands on occurs in 13th-century Aleppan cookbook Al-Wusla ila ‘l-Habeeb (الوصلة الى الحبيب في وصف الطيبات والطيب) written by the well-known Syrian historian Ibn Al-'Adeem (d. 1262). The recipe is just one line long, but it certainly points to our dish, "Meat is cut, spread on flattened discs of dough, and then put in the brick oven furn.” (p. 2:556)  

However, in Iraq this food seems to have been kept on the back burner for a long while. When I was still a kid in Baghdad, not many people knew of it. We used to get it by order from the neighborhood bakery owned by an Armenian, but his version was very basic. The topping consisted of just meat, onions, salt, and black pepper. By the seventies, though, popularity of this delicious bread picked up and many small bakeries specialized in making it were opened in the major cities of Iraq to meet the increasing demand. It comes out of their brick ovens sizzling hot, lusciously moist and tender, and dripping with the melted fat of meat. Delicious surely, but unfortunately too greasy.  

This food is too good to pass, and why should we. We can make it  ourselves, equally delicious but much healthier. It is indeed fun to make but definitely not a dish to whip in 30 minutes. But I assure you it would be time well invested.

Recipe for making lahm b-'ajeen:   

First we need to prepare the dough (the 'ajeen part):

2 tablespoons dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

½ cup warm water

9 cups (2¼ pounds) bread flour

1 tablespoon salt

½ cup oil

3 cups warm water

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in ½ cup warm water, set aside for 5 minutes.

2. Put flour and salt in a big bowl. Make a well in the middle, and pour yeast mixture along with oil and water. With a wooden spoon, incorporate liquids into flour in a circular movement. With slightly oiled hands, knead dough for about 5 minutes. The final dough should be of medium consistency. Oil dough on both sides and set it aside, covered, in a warm draft-free place for 45 minutes or until well risen. 

Now to the meat part (lahm):

  

While waiting for the dough to rise, prepare the topping:

3 medium onions (about 2 cups), finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 heaping tablespoons tomato paste (one 6-ounce can)

1½ - 2 pounds ground lean meat (beef or lamb, or a mix of both)

¾ cup chopped parsley

2 medium tomatoes (about 1½ cups), finely chopped

1 tablespoon pomegranate syrup (may use lemon juice instead)

2 teaspoons baharat (spice mix, follow link for recipe)

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon chili pepper, or to taste

Sauté onion in oil, about 5 minutes (just enough to soften it), and then stir in tomato paste until it emits a nice aroma, about a minute. Set aside until it cools down to room temperature. Then mix in the rest of the topping ingredients.     

Now, it's shape and bake time: 

1. Position one of the oven shelves at the lowest level if oven is electric, and put on it a pizza stone or an inverted baking sheet. If oven is gas, remove the lowest shelf, and place the pizza stone right on the oven floor. Position the second shelf at the highest level, and preheat oven 420°F.  

2. As soon as dough rises, punch it down and divide it into 20 pieces, which you shape into neat balls by tucking in the sides with slightly oiled hands. Place portions on a lightly-oiled surface..

3. Since the dough does not need to rise again, you can start shaping and baking right away. Lightly cover work surface and rolling pin with olive oil, and roll out a dough portion into a disc about 7 inches in diameter (or rectangle), about ⅛ inch thick. Place the flattened dough on a piece of parchment paper, a little bigger than the dough disc. Spread about ¼ cup  of the meat mix on it. It should cover the surface in a thin layer, leaving a slight border uncovered. Lightly brush uncovered border with olive oil. (If parchment paper is not available, use greased baking sheets).



4. Immediately, and with the help of a small bread peel (or a solid piece of cardboard or wood or anything similar). Slide the disc into the hot stone or the inverted baking sheet. Dough is not supposed to puff like pita bread, and it will take about 8 minutes to bake. You can bake 2 or 3 at a time depending on oven or pizza stone size. While this batch is baking, start working on the other batches. You might transfer half-baked ones to the upper shelf, and put some new ones on lower shelf to expedite the procedure.  

           

6. As soon as you take the baked ones out of the oven, stack them with the parchment paper, in a big paper bag, lined with a kitchen towel or paper napkins, and partially close the bag. Or use a large container (see photo to your right). The parchment paper will prevent the topping from sticking to the bottom of the piece above it.

Best when eaten hot right from the oven, but also good at room temperature. Any leftovers may be refrigerated or frozen, and warmed up in the oven.