The Gulf and Arabia · Volume 59, The Tigris Fire, the Shrine Kitchen and the Table That Left
Tashreeb bagilla
Baghdad
Illustration
- Time
- 24 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 44 sources in the brief
Tashreeb is bread torn into a broth, and this one is made with broad beans. Al-Husseini calls tashreeb food for those doing hard physical work. Nasrallah gives the bean version as tashreeb or thareed bagilla and says river mint is the herb it takes, exclusively. The structure is the medieval tharid's; the line of descent is not shown.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. A day to soak, about an hour and a half to cook.
Ingredients
- 340g dried broad beans
- 1½ large flatbreads, a day old, or 4 khubz
- for garnish onion, sliced and fried
- 4 eggs, one each, fried
- 1 tbsp river mint, dried and crushed, or the mint you have
- 2 tsp salt
Method
- Soak the beans in cold water for 24 hours.
- Simmer them in fresh water with the salt for about an hour, until they are tender and the broth tastes of them.
- Tear the bread into a deep bowl and ladle the beans and broth over it until the bread has drunk what it can.
- Fry the onion until dark and sweet, and fry an egg for each person.
- Lay the onion and the egg over the bread, scatter the mint, and eat it while the bread is still holding its shape.
What a modern chef changes
The broth made first, and the bread chosen
Rungs 1 and 5
Method
- Cook the beans the day before, cool them in their liquor overnight and skim the fat and skins off the top; the broth is clearer and tastes more of bean.
- Toast the torn bread on a stone until the edges catch, so it drinks the broth without collapsing.
- Fry the onion low for 40 minutes, not 10: the sweetness is the dish's only sugar.
- Finish with a pinch of ground nomi Basra over the egg, which is not Baghdad's habit and is the Basra note that the dish can take.