Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Taklia and other garnishes


Recommended Posts

A lot of Middle Eastern dishes are garnished with flavored clarified butter (samneh). One of the most well known ones is taklia, cilantro and garlic lightly fried in samneh and then poured over the finished dish. But I was thinking about how there are many other clarified butter garnishes: pine nuts in butter over fette, cinnamon and dried mint poured over pomegranate soup, fenugreek-flavored butter is popular in Egypt, etc.

Is there an Arabic word for these flavored butter garnishes?

I believe Paula Wolfert refers to it as "the sizzle," and I have another friend who says you can also use taklia to refer to all sorts of garnishes, not just the cilantro-garlic one. There is a Persian word for it that Najmieh Batmanglij uses, but I've forgotten it at the moment.

Also, is there a sort of catalogue of garnishes that go with different dishes? Obviously, that would be something most home cooks learn by experience, but it would be interesting to try and catalogue them.

Many thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is very common in Turkey too; the most common are mint or mint and red pepper in butter or olive oil. I'm not aware of a name for it in particular. In recipes they usually just say something like "burn some mint in olive oil" (literally; of course they don't mean to actually burn it!)

"Los Angeles is the only city in the world where there are two separate lines at holy communion. One line is for the regular body of Christ. One line is for the fat-free body of Christ. Our Lady of Malibu Beach serves a great free-range body of Christ over angel-hair pasta."

-Lea de Laria

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...