Mesopotamia: Kanasu Broth
Feb. 13th, 2022 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nuncheonKanasu broth. Leg of mutton is used. Prepare water; add fat, samidu, coriander, cumin, and kanasu. Assemble all the ingredients in the cooking vessel, and sprinkle with crushed garlic. Then blend into the pot suhutinnu and mint.
"Kanasu" is variously translated as Emmer, Spelt, or Wheatberries. So, either a flour or the grains cooked in the stew.
"Samidu" I will still treat as semolina, because apart from one translation where they say it's an onion, everyone (both because of linguistics and from a cooking point of view) uses semolina.
"Suhutinnu" is most likely a root vegetable (or maybe a leek, as one translation says). Other tablets refer to it being "dug up", and it has been variously approximated with beets, turnips, or carrots. In other recipes Suhutinnu is used raw at the end of the cooking process.
I am going to make two variations of this dish. For the first one, I will use mutton, olive oil, two tablespoons of strong bread flour (because for some reason I had neither spelt nor emmer flour; NB I never use self-raising flour), a tablespoon of semolina, ground coriander and cumin, carrots and leeks, garlic, and mint. I'll also add salt, both for modern tastes and because I am rather sure that, although salt is mentioned only once or twice on the tablets themselves, it would have been added to the dishes.
Sear off the meat in the olive oil; take out. To the oil, add a mix of the flour, semolina, and spices; add a bit of water to thin the resulting roux, cook out the flour. Add the thinly sliced garlic; add mint if dry is used - fresh later. Add sliced carrots and leeks and the meat, add enough water to cover it. Cook until everything has the desired softness. Season to taste.
At the moment it is still cooking away and smelling rather yummy. I will post a picture once it's done.
"Kanasu" is variously translated as Emmer, Spelt, or Wheatberries. So, either a flour or the grains cooked in the stew.
"Samidu" I will still treat as semolina, because apart from one translation where they say it's an onion, everyone (both because of linguistics and from a cooking point of view) uses semolina.
"Suhutinnu" is most likely a root vegetable (or maybe a leek, as one translation says). Other tablets refer to it being "dug up", and it has been variously approximated with beets, turnips, or carrots. In other recipes Suhutinnu is used raw at the end of the cooking process.
I am going to make two variations of this dish. For the first one, I will use mutton, olive oil, two tablespoons of strong bread flour (because for some reason I had neither spelt nor emmer flour; NB I never use self-raising flour), a tablespoon of semolina, ground coriander and cumin, carrots and leeks, garlic, and mint. I'll also add salt, both for modern tastes and because I am rather sure that, although salt is mentioned only once or twice on the tablets themselves, it would have been added to the dishes.
Sear off the meat in the olive oil; take out. To the oil, add a mix of the flour, semolina, and spices; add a bit of water to thin the resulting roux, cook out the flour. Add the thinly sliced garlic; add mint if dry is used - fresh later. Add sliced carrots and leeks and the meat, add enough water to cover it. Cook until everything has the desired softness. Season to taste.
At the moment it is still cooking away and smelling rather yummy. I will post a picture once it's done.