Banquets of the nations

Take three tablespoonfuls of butter, and make it thoroughly hot in a saucepan ; add to it three dinnerglassfuls of rice, put them in the saucepan, stir with the butter for a short time, and pour over them six glassfuls of boiling water, with about a dessertspoonful of salt, then boil till the rice has soaked up all the water and is quite soft. Take another saucepan, butter it well all round the sides and bottom, sprinkle pounded breadcrumbs over the butter on the sides and bottom ; put the boiled rice in a thick layer over the bottom of the saucepan, and a thinner layer round the sides, leaving room in the centre for a mixture of minced meat fried with onions and snowbars, seasoned with pepper and salt and tomato pulp. Cover the mixture over with a layer of boiled rice, return the saucepan to the fire, which should be quite a low clear one with just sufficient heat to toast the breadcrumbs a nice brown. Turn out the rice on to a round dish, where it will stand as a perfect mould if the rice is of the proper consistency and not too moist. Serve with leben or a lettuce dressed with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. Mishmush Matbook. (Stewed Apricots.) Make a good strong syrup of sugar and water, and after clearing it put in some apricots (so that they are covered) and stew very gently till cooked. Serve cold. Bedowie Sheikh. (Roast Lamb.) Skin it whole ; the head and trotters to be left on the lamb. Clean the inside from all impurities, wipe it dry, and dust with pepper and salt. Take the liver, heart, and a pound of meat ; mince them small. Have ready a pound of rice half-boiled (in native fashion) and half a pound of snowbars, pine cones, or pistachio nuts. Mix all together with pepper and salt to taste, and a seasoning of cinnamon, which put inside the lamb and sew it up. Put the head between its feet, smear it well over with clarified dripping in a baking-pan ; baste with plenty of clarified dripping when roasting. There is no other dish put on the table with it except a dish of rice ; but serve boiled potatoes and salad made of sliced cucumbers and dressed with leben (sour curds) . Kibbeh. (Roasted Mince.) Take six pounds of lean meat without fat and pound it in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle of oak. The meat is beaten till it is very fine, taking care to take out 609 2 Q all the stringy fibres as they appear. When finished put it on a plate. Wash six pounds of crushed wheat in two waters, soak for six hours, and squeeze dry with the hand ; mix with the meat and knead them together. Take three or four onions of a moderate size, pound them in a mortar with pepper and salt according to taste ; then knead all together. In a baking pan well smeared with clarified dripping put one layer of the ingredients half an inch thick ; press it with the hand to make it firm. Take eight onions cut fine and half a pound of meat minced small, also a quarter of a pound of snowbars pine cone seeds or pistachio nuts, fry them in butter with pepper and salt and a slight flavouring of aniseed until they are brown ; add this to the meat already in the pan. Then put the remainder of the kibbeh on the top ; press it down with the hand.