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apearlintheocean · 2 years

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Mujabbana cooked in a pan

Cheese Fritters

[Image ID: Several mujabbana, fried cheese fritters that look like mini-doughnuts, arranged in a ring on a plate. A small bowl of melted honey butter sits in the middle of the ring. /end ID]

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“Soak the semolina with cold water, if it is summer, or hot water, if winter. Knead as if one is making dough for dumplings and let rest. Take fresh, soft cheese, rinse with water, and crush by hand in a bowl until it has the consistency of marrow. If the cheese is dry and salty, cut it into pieces, leave it to soak in water to desalt and soften it, then rinse it with water and rub by hand until it has the desired consistency.

Taste. If it lacks salt, add some; if it is too salty, add some fresh milk, or, if milk is lacking, hot water. Put in as much as necessary. Take an amount of dough equal to a quarter of the cheese. Add to it a bit of aniseed, mint water, and coriander (cilantro) water, and then knead in order to obtain a homogeneous dough.

Place on the fire a tin-plated frying pan containing quite a lot of oil. While waiting for the oil to become very hot, your assistant should wash his hands and take with the left hand a piece of the dough and spread it out a little on the palm, and then, with the right hand, take a little of the cheese and put it in the center of the dough spread out on the left hand. At this point he will make a fist and remove the excess dough that comes out between the thumb and index finger. Then he will give a flat and rounded shape to the dough remaining in the hand and make a round hole in the middle of it. He will then place these cakes [mujabbana] next to one another in the pan until it is filled. One needs to stir them continually with an iron fork so that they are cooked and well browned. If a mujabbana is not thoroughly immersed in the oil, it is necessary to place a well-cooked one on top of it in order to assure that the cooking is uniform throughout. Remove them at the end from the frying oil and let them rest for an hour in a dish before moving them to a mithrad [a type of dish]. Moisten them with fresh filtered butter and melted honey, and sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon. Eat them, God willing, and may good health be yours.”

Fidālat al-Khiwān fī Tayyibāt al-Ta’ām wa al-Alwān, Al-Tujībī (t. Lilia Zaouali), Al-Andalus, 13th c.

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Servings: 16 fritters Cook Time: 3 hours

1 packet yeast 3 ½ Tbsp honey (split in 3 steps) ¼ cup warm water 1 large bundle of mint ½ large bundle of cilantro 1 ½ cups cold water 3 ½ cups semolina flour (or white flour) ½ tsp whole aniseed 1 tsp salt 10 oz goat cheese (or dry ricotta cheese) 1 cup vegetable oil (enough to fill about 1 inch of your pan - see step 7) 1/3 cup butter 1 Tbsp sugar ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp ground aniseed

Mix the yeast with ½ Tbsp honey and ¼ cup warm water and let rest for 10 minutes

While waiting for the yeast to foam, briefly blend the mint, cilantro, and 1 ½ cups cold water in a food processor or small blender until the water starts turning green - do this in pulses to avoid heating it up

Strain the blended herbs with a filter or cheesecloth to make about 1 ¼ cups of mint/cilantro water

Once the yeast mix is foaming, mix in the mint/cilantro water, flour, whole aniseed, and salt, and knead

Place dough in a bowl, cover it with a cloth or plastic wrap, and let it rest for 60 minutes

Crumble goat cheese into a bowl and mix with 1 Tbsp honey

When the 60 minutes of rest is up, fill a pan with about 1 inch of oil and set the burner to medium heat

After preparing your work surface and a rolling pin with flour, take a pinch of dough to form a ball approximately 1-2 inches in diameter

Roll the ball out into a flat disc about 5-6 inches wide

Place the disc in one hand and place some cheese in the middle; the cheese should, when compressed, form a ball about 2-3 inches in diameter

Pinch the edges of the dough together and remove most (but not all) of the excess dough

Carefully push the remaining excess dough down to form a small hole in the middle like a doughnut, taking care to use your fingers and ensure the excess dough covers the inside of the hole so that the cheese doesn’t come out (but if some does, that’s okay)

Repeat steps 8-12 until all the dough and cheese is formed into doughnuts, making sure to re-flour your rolling pin, hands, and work surface as needed

Once the oil is hot, place some fritters in the pan

Fry them until they’re golden brown on the bottom (2-3 minutes), then flip and let the other side turn golden brown (another 2-3 minutes)

Once they are done, place on a plate covered with a paper towel to absorb some oil

Repeat steps 14-16 until all the fritters are cooked

Once all the fritters have cooked, place them all on a wire rack to cool so they don’t get soggy

Let the fritters cool for at least 30 minutes

Melt the butter and 2 Tbsp honey in a small bowl

Drizzle some melted honey butter on top of the fritters, then sprinkle them with sugar, cinnamon, and ground aniseed

Place the bowl of remaining honey butter in the middle of a large plate, arrange the fritters around it, and serve

Recipe Notes

This breakfast fritter tastes like a slightly less sweet, cheese-filled churro. The dough is a little chewy but not overly fried. I made it with goat cheese but honestly, I would go for a milder cheese next time (like ricotta). Despite how wonderfully goat cheese pairs with honey, this was a little too sour for my taste.

You can purchase mint water from Middle Eastern/Persian grocery stores, but I have yet to find cilantro water and you need such tiny amounts of it you might as well make both yourself. Mint water from a grocery store is clear because it’s distilled. This recipe’s mint/cilantro water may be a disturbing greenish brown, but you will add so little of it to the mix that it won’t affect the mujabbana color. To keep it as green as possible, only pulse just enough to break up the herb leaves. If you blend the hell out of it, it will definitely turn murky brown.

I made the following modifications to the original recipe:

It is possible this recipe was not meant to be leavened, but I took some cues from a similar recipe in the Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook which called for adding sourdough. Since yeast packets are more widely available, this is what I used for the recipe.

The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook also specified that you should use 3 part sheep’s milk cheese to 1 parts cow’s milk cheese. I had goat cheese so that’s what I used, but whatever you use, make sure it’s relatively dry - if it’s too wet the dough won’t bind properly.

The Andalusian way of eating the dish was to moisten the fritters with honey butter, while the Mashriq way was instead to dip them in honey butter. I combined the best of both worlds because honey butter is delicious.

Although I followed the described method for making the doughnut shape, it was difficult to punch through the dough without exposing the cheese. One possibility is rolling out a long, thin piece of dough, placing the cheese along the middle, pinching and rolling it shut, and then coiling the dough around to form the doughnut shape. If you try this, please report back on how it goes!

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