Lauzinaj Handout

Class by Cariadoc, 2/16/18, at the West Coast Culinary Symposium

Dry Lauzinaj (candy)

Familiar foods p. 453

A pound of pounded peeled sweet almonds, three pounds of sugar. Pound the sugar and throw it in the cauldron without water. And when it melts [on the fire], throw in the almonds and thicken it with them. Spread it out [on a board] and cut it into triangles. You might put two ounces of starch with; it will come out nice, crisp. Flavor it with a little rose-water and much musk before the starch descends onto it.

¼ lb almonds, 1 ½ c sugar, 2/3 oz starch = 8t, T rose water

Familiar Foods p. 456

One part almonds, pounded coarsely. Put a like quantity of finely pounded sugar on it with a third as much rose-water, and melt it with it. When it thickens, throw one part sugar on it and take it from the fire. It is dry lauzinaj.

4 oz almonds, ½ c sugar, 8t rose water, another ½ c sugar

Put the second batch of sugar on at the end, stirred it in, removed from heat.

Possibly the final sugar should be  broken up rock candy rather than ground sugar? It doesn’t say finely pounded.

Wrapped Lauzinaj

I have used methods from several different sources, given at the end.

Batter is made in three different ways:

Starch from dough:

Combine 2 c flour, 2/3 c water, knead smooth, let rest an hour. Knead it with more water, pouring off the “milk” that is produced until it stops producing milk. This will take six or more cups of water, and leaves you with a lump of gluten. Let the “milk” settle and pour off the clear water that has risen to the top.

Starch plus water:

Combine wheat starch with water, whisk it together with a fork.

¼ c starch + ¼ c of water gives you a thin blintz (see cooking instructions below)

¼ c starch +7T of water gives you grasshopper wing thinness (see below)

Starch, water, egg white:

Combine starch with water, add an egg white, whisk it together with a fork.

Combine 5T starch with 3T water and one egg white, gives you a thin blintz

Combine 5T starch with 5T water and one egg white, gives you cardstock thin

Combine 5T starch with 7T water and one egg white, gives you grasshopper wing thin

How to make the wrappers

Use an “Indian mirror,” a frying pan without sides. I got mine at an Indian grocery store.

Wrap chopped up beeswax and chopped walnuts in a tied-up cloth–this is what you will lubricate your mirror with.

Put your batter in a cup measure or something else that can easily be poured from.

Put a bowl next to the stove.

Heat the mirror until drops of water sprinkled on it boil immediately, then rub its surface with the cloth.

Hold the mirror almost vertical above the bowl and pour the batter across it, letting the excess drip into the bowl. Put the mirror back over the stove briefly. The edges of the wrapper should curl away from surface of the mirror. Peel the wrapper off—if the fates are smiling at you, you can invert the mirror over a plate and have the wrapper come off on its own.

The thickness of the wrapper depends on how thin the batter is. A thick batter gives you something like a very thin crepe. A thinner batter gives you a wrapper about as thick as cardstock. A still thinner batter gives you something like saran wrap—presumably what some sources describe as being as thin as a grasshopper’s wing.

Repeat, wiping the mirror each time with the cloth, pouring the excess batter from the bowl back into the cup measure.

How to make the filling

Combine 2 oz ground peeled almonds, 2 oz ground raw pistachios, 4 oz sugar. Add 1 T rose water.

Assembly

Sprinkle the filling over a wrapper and roll the wrapper up. Put it in a flat bowl or something similar—a container with sides. Repeat for more rolls. Cut each roll into pieces. Sprinkle on almond oil or sesame oil (from untoasted sesame seeds, not the dark sesame oil used in oriental cooking). Pour on sugar syrup. Eat.

The easy version

Scents and Flavors 7.63 (translation calls it “Marzipan” but it’s lauzinaj).

For the moist version take 2 kg sugar and 2/3 kg of peeled blanched almonds and grind both fine. Mix the almonds with the sugar and knead with rose water. Take bread dough rolled thin as for sanbusak, the thinner the better; the most suitable sort is kunafah flatbread. Spread out a sheet of that dough and put the kneaded almonds and sugar filling on it, then roll up, cut in small pieces, and arrange in rows in a vessel. Take as much fresh sesame oil as necessary and add, then cover with syrup dissolved with rose water. Scatter sugar and finely pounded pistachios on top and use.

¼ lb almonds, 3/2 c sugar, 4T rose water

Three 9”x9” sheets of lavash or other very thin bread

6T sesame oil, ¾ c sugar syrup combined with 1T rose water

Sprinkle over it 1 ½ t sugar, 3T crushed pistachios

Sources for Wrapped Lauzinaj

Lauzinaj

Familiar Foods p. 419

Take flour and knead it stiff, and when it stiffens, macerate it until it becomes like fresh milk. Take the mirror of manqush and put [the batter] on it with the ‘emptire’ and take it up. Then roll up pistachois, sugar, musk and good rose water in them, and arrange them side by side and cut them, and throw sesame oil and syrup on them and sprinkle sugar on them. This is rolled up the next morning, and it might be eaten fresh right away.

 

Making thin sheets for lawzinaj

al-Warraq pp. 125-126

Dissolve starch to thick paste and strain it. For each uqiya of starch add 1 egg white and whisk the mixture thoroughly and continuously.

Heat the tabaq and wipe it with a cloth wrapped with pieces of wax and shelled walnut.

Ladle out some of the mixure and pour it on the tabaq. When the bread is done scrape it out. Wipe the tabaq once more with the cloth and make another piece.

 

A recipe for lawzinaj from the copy of al Mu'tasim:

Al Warraq pp. 410-411

Take lawzinaj (sheets) made by pouring the batter on the tabaq. Cover the sheets after they cool down so that they stay malleable.

Take equal parts of shelled pistachios and skinned almonds, and finely grind them. Grind tabarzad sugar, the amount of which should be equal to that of the nuts. Mix the sugar with the nuts and sprinkle them with rose water in which a few cloves were steeped overnight. Add more sugar if needed.

Stuff lawzinaj sheets with the nut filling, cut them into [smaller pieces], and arrange them in a small delicate platter. Pour on them fresh almond oil, and sprinkle pounded tabarzad sugar on, and in between, the rows of pieces. …(options)

 

(From correspondence with Nasrallah)

The Indian mirror is heated up very well on medium-heat coal fire, and then it is wetted, and held -vertically- on top of the thin-batter bowl. Immediately the batter is poured on its wetted surface, letting the rest of the batter drip down into the bowl. The recipe says a very thin sheet of the batter will cling to the surface, to be shaken off onto a piece of cloth, and the procedure continues.   

 

ddfr@daviddfriedman.com