Take:
Head of one sheep and 8 feet
6 oz laban strained in a sack for 45 minutes
2 tbs salt
5 cloves garlic
1 1/2 oz butter
1 lb toasted Arab bread
1 1/2 oz pine nuts (snobar)
dried mint and red pepper for garnishing
Prepare and cook head and feet.
Mash garlic with salt and mix it with the laban and add dry mint. Ten minutes before it is time to serve, remove meat from the head and feet. Crumble the toasted bread and spread it in a deep, wide platter or tray and sprinkle it with some of the broth in which head was cooked. Cover it with the meat from the head and feet. Pour the laban mixture over it and sprinkle more dry mint and red pepper. Pine nuts which had been roasted in melted butter may be added as the last touch.
Take about 44 lbs of veal, cut from the leg of a young beef which was butchered 2 days earlier.
Slice meat into round, thin slices about 7 inches in diameter and about 1 inch thick. Cut pieces of fat the same size and thickness as the lean meat.
Marinate the meat in mixture of the following ingredients:
1 tbs cardomom seed
1 tbs mastic
1 1/2 tbs cinnamon
1 tbs nutmeg
1 tbs white pepper
1/2 tbs black pepper
1 lb red onions
5 bay leaves
2 oz garlic
1 qt lemon
1 pt olive oil
2 pts vinegar, good quality
1 tbs cloves
1 1/2 lbs salt
Soak cardamom seed for 6 hours, then grind it fine with its skin. Add 1 tbs salt to the mastic and pound together until very fine. Chop onions fine.
Take part of the spices, salt and pepper and rub into the meat and fat. Place meat in a glass or earthenware container and marinate in a mixture of the above ingredients with onions. Soak for 24 hours keeping it in a refrigerator the temperature of which is 5 degrees centigrade, above zero. Stir the meat from time to time.
As the end of 24 hours, take out of refrigerator and keep at room temperature for 2 hours. All ingredients must warm up to room temperature.
Stick the meat on long skewers or place on a revolving rotisserie. If out skewers, they must be the kind that turns automatically and constantly while the meat is broiling. In sticking the meat on skewers, put one piece of fat between four pieces of lean meat. The skewer must be perpendicular to the fire and very near to it. This could be a hot charcoal fire or strong electric or gas fire. Place it so that the meat is facing the fire.
Have a sharp knife ready and cut the edges of the meat as it broils. Serve it unwrapped in loaves of Arab bread on plates. Sprinkle over it some of its drippings which has gathered in the tray in which the revolving skewer is anchored.
5 brains of lamb or
2 brains of beef
1 1/2 tbs salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
3 tbs flour
11 oz butter
6 eggs
Boil brains. Cool and cut into rounded pieces and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Break eggs and separate white from yellows. Put egg whites in a deep bowl and beat till it forms thick foam. Add to it the beaten egg yellow. Beat again after adding salt and pepper. Add flour and turn lightly with a spoon. Melt butter in skillet. Dip pieces of brains into the beaten eggs and lift the pieces with a spoon taking some of the eggs with it and drop this into the hot butter. Keep the fried brains warm in a container near the heat until ready to serve. Serve with it vegetables or potatoes.
