isfanj al-rīḥ

Discussion

Our sources contain many recipes for a wide variety of pastries, which were clearly beloved in al-Andalus. Second to the widely praised Mujabbanat, Isfanj enjoy a prized place in Andalusian history that stretches back from Rome and forward into today in not only Spain, but throughout its colonies, as Buñuelos, in North Africa and among Jews as Sfenj, and even in the French-speaking world and United States as Beignets. Fried dough inevitably develops in every human culture, but this particular iteration can be traced throughout the world. FKH presents three variations, and ASA provides two.

I have chosen the “Isfanj al-rih” (meaning light-as-air) variation because it presents the most contrast with the Mujabbanat and they will be served together. The basis of the dough is the same – Semolina flour is moistened with water and allowed to rest. Today, we would call this process “autolyse” in which not only does the flour become hydrated, but enzymes are activated while the precursors to gluten – glutenin and gliadin – develop and passively become some amount of gluten as well. This can drastically improve the quality of dough and reduce the amount of time and effort in actively kneading the dough.

We add fresh yeast to the dough, knead it until elastic, and allow it to rise (ferment) before taking small pieces and frying them. In FKH I.4.30, the author also gives us good advice on modern breadmaking. He instructs us to “lift all the dough by hand and quickly return it to the kneading bowl to incorporate air into it.” While this does not directly incorporate much air, it does develop long gluten strands that will form the necessary network to hold the gases from the yeast and remain stable after cooking.

Some recipes include egg as well, which will lead to a much more puffed finished product as the water escapes and the albumin stabilizes during frying, and a richer dough due to the egg yolks. As with other doughs, the physics of hydration have not changed so the recipe is developed within those parameters, but we are given an amount of eggs to use in AS 124 – “for each mudd (~2 lbs.) of flour, use five eggs.”

One of the interesting things I find among these recipes, and the Mujabbanat as well, is the care taken to instruct the reader on how to properly shape the dough in FKH. The author instructs us to “take a portion of the dough with your left hand and press it with your palm so that some of it comes out through the [ring of the] thumb and index fingers” which is an excellent technique for hand-portioning many small pieces of a soft dough, giving excellent control to a practiced hand, and also aligning the gluten in the dough with the surface of the resulting sphere, giving it a nice, even shape when it cooks. I am not an expert, but you can see me demonstrate this same technique in the Mujabbanat video on that page.