That Translator Can Cook: Maamoul
Soft shortbread cookies typically filled with date paste, pistachios, or walnuts and dusted with powdered sugar.
Happy Easter/Passover everyone! These cookies are eaten throughout the year, but they’re especially made on religious holidays, especially those for breaking fasts. Even though these cookies are usually made for Eid al-Fitr, I chose this recipe because they are also made for Easter. I also wanted to use today to dispel two of the most accepted MENA stereotypes: all Arabs are Muslim, and all Muslims are Arab. Did you know that most Arab Americans are Christian and that American Muslims are the most racially diverse religious group in the US? (less than one fifth identify as Arab)
Maamoul is known as kahk in Egypt, which was depicted in temple paintings and carvings from the Pharaonic Period in Ancient Egypt. According to Egypt Independent, “Ancient Egyptians also used to make larger kahk-like pies, locally known as shurik, before visiting tombs during religious feasts.” To learn more about kahk’s history, click this link to Egypt Independent.
Maamoul/kahk has always been made for festivals involving feasting. According to Bake Magazine, Sawsan Abu Farha (Chef in Disguise) says that maamoul is symbolic-“the cookies are meant to remind you that though fasting is hard, within it is a sweet reward, exactly like maamoul's outer shell is bland but the core is sweet.”
The cookies were and still are shaped with wooden molds, but there are also plastic molds as well (see pictures below). You can also tell what kind of filling is inside the maamoul based on the mold that was used: a flat round maamoul is filled with date paste and an [elongated] oval one is filled with nut filling.
Here is how to make date maamoul. The pictures and recipe belong to AlmondAndFig
Ingredients
Dough Ingredients
1 pound of fine semolina
1 cup or 2 sticks of unsalted or “sweet” butter
1/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of mastic
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1/ 2 teaspoon of mahaleb
1 teaspoon of yeast
Date Filling Ingredients
1 pound of date paste
1 tablespoon of melted butter
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
A sprinkle of fresh nutmeg
Instructions (Takes Two Days)
Melt the butter. Ground the sugar and mastic well in a mortar until you get a powder.
Day One
Blend the semolina, melted butter, mastic, and mahaleb in a big bowl. Using your hands, combine all the ingredients until they are well-mixed and resemble moist crumbs. It will take about ten minutes for this. Cover with plastic wrap (so that the dough won’t dry out) and leave it on the counter for the night.
Day Two
Add the water, milk, and instant yeast, then knead the dough with your hands for a few minutes until it can hold its shape. You must be able to hold and flatten the dough in your hand without it crumbling. If it is very dry, you can add a tablespoon of water until the dough comes together better. Blend the filling ingredients together well so that you have a smooth mixture. Using a tablespoon, divide the dough into balls and put them aside on a cookie sheet. Cover the dough with plastic wrap until it’s ready to use.
Now, the filling: blend the date paste, melted butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg until the mixture is smooth. Using the same spoon or measuring with an ice cream spoon (don’t fill it), you want the date paste to be a little bit smaller than the dough so that it’s easy to wrap it up. Divide the date filling into balls, place them to the side on a cookie sheet, and cover them with cling wrap so that they’re ready to use and they don’t dry out.
Using cookie molds or the traditional maamoul molds, place a hollow disk of dough in every place. Make decorative patterns-you can decorate them however you like. Don’t press too deep or you’ll poke a hole in the dough.
Alternative method (without molds): Put the dough in the palm of your hand and flatten it somewhat into a big disk, and put a little bit of date filling. Put a date paste ball in the middle and wrap the dough around it until you can’t see the paste anymore. Roll it between your hands like a ball. Flatten it a bit and, using the handle of a wooden spoon or your pinky finger, make a small hole in the middle.
Preheat the oven to 350°F and place the cookies on parchment paper. Bake the date-filled cookies for 10 minutes. You can also take the cookies out if they become dark brown. Let them cool completely before decorating them. Traditionally, powdered sugar is sprinkled directly on them before serving.
And here are the cookies I made with my niece. Hopefully, you can tell which ones the 4-year-old made and which ones I made. They're not pretty, but they tasted delicious. I substituted the plain water with rose water. We made one with a wooden mold, but the cookie was hard to remove and just huge--my niece couldn't finish it. I've been told that putting plastic wrap between the mold and the dough prevents it from sticking while still preserving the design.
Translator’s Discussion
In the step talking about dividing up the dough, the recipe stated, “باستخدام مقياس ملعقة بسكويت واحد” with ‘tbls’ next to it, so I translated it as “using a tablespoon.” Was there really an overabundance of redundancy, or did I misinterpret the source text? What do you think?
The term used for ‘date’ switched a few times throughout the recipe: تمر and تاريخ. Most of the time, تمر, which refers to ‘date’ the fruit, was used. However, تاريخ was used a couple times. This term means ‘date’ as in today’s date is 4/12/2020, and it also means ‘history.’ So, naturally I was very confused while translating this recipe. I hate to admit it didn’t even occur to me that تاريخ was being used to refer to ‘date,’ that’s how weird the usage is to me. In my opinion, this recipe was written by someone who knows English well, either they’re an English language learner or they’re bilingual. It still doesn’t make sense why they would use تاريخ, am I missing something? Is this common? How would you analyze this term usage?