That Translator Can Cook: Timman Ou Qeema
A tomato-based stew of ground meat and mashed chickpeas spiced with dried lime and cinnamon and served over rice lightly seasoned with saffron water.
While I have tried an Iranian dish similar to this one, I have not tried this Iraqi dish yet. Though, after translating the recipe and reading about it, now I want to eat them both...at once. I should not have written this article while hungry…
This dish is popular in Iraq and tends to be served at Islamic celebrations like Ashura, which is the 10th day of the 10th Islamic month (Muharram). For Shiite Muslims, Ashura is the day that commemorates when Husayn bin Ali (Prophet Muhammad’s grandson) was martyred in the Battle of Karbala. It is also a time for pilgrimage to important Shiite sites in Kadhimiya (district in Baghdad), Najaf, and Karbala. For Sunni Muslims, Ashura commemorates something else and it’s recommended to fast during this day.
During this holiday, many Iraqi residents give free food to pilgrims and/or neighbors, and the most traditional meal is timman ou qeema. The men usually cook the meal in two large pots/vats, slow cooking it for hours.
Qeema (the meat/chickpea stew) is sometimes considered the Iraqi variant of gheimeh, an Iranian stew that consists of mutton, tomatoes, split peas, onion and dried lime. However, the dish’s origin could date back even further: ‘qeema’ is an ancient Akkadian word meaning “finely chopped.” So maybe Iraqi queema is the true original and Iranian gheimeh is the variant, since the Akaddian Empire was the first empire in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq, eastern Syria, southwestern Turkey, and parts of Kuwait). Food for thought.
On another note, I’ve had [khoresht] gheimeh bademjan (lamb eggplant stew) at a local Persian restaurant, and it is so good. I’ll have to give timman ou qeema a try some day.
Here is how to make this delicious stew and rice dish. The pictures and recipe all belong to Afrah.
Ingredients
For the qeema:
0.5 kg. ground meat
0.5 kg. or more of whole chickpeas, soaked and boiled
About 3 tbsp. tomato paste
1 dried lime
3 large onions
A dash of salt
A dash of cinnamon
About 1 tbsp. ground dried lime
A dash of qeema spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cubeb, cloves, cumin, black pepper) if available
For the rice:
2 cups long-grain rice
0.25 cup or less of saffron water
Ghee or animal fat
Steps
Boil the ground meat in a little bit of water
Peel and julienne the onion, then sauté it in oil until it turns a dark golden brown, then drain the oil.
After browning the meat, add the chickpeas and little bit of their water to it, then mash them (smush or grind them) with a mortar and pestle, or whichever utensil you use.
Add tomato paste to the remaining chickpea water, then add it to the pot. Increase the amount of tomato paste or water as needed, but it’s important to maintain its thickness. Add the salt, spices, and dried lime, and stir.
Add the onion and stir a bit, then turn off the heat.
Cook the rice plain, aside from the animal fat or ghee. Before the rice is cooked completely, add a little bit of saffron and cover without stirring. After it’s cooked completely, stir it and serve.
Note: This amount of saffron depends on how much or how little you want.
Bon appetit!
Translators’ Discussion:
The original phrasing of ‘dried lime’ was نومي بصرة (“noomi Basra”) in the original recipe. They’re also called ‘black limes,’ but I thought that would sound less appealing. There are many other variations of the name, but I believe this particular phrasing is unique to Iraq and it’s because these limes are imported from India and Oman through Basra. I’m not sure how ‘noomi’ plays into it though. Can anyone shed some light on this?
I had a bit of trouble with ‘دارسين’: Some sources translated it as ‘Chinese cinnamon,’ (cinnamon cassia), but other sources simply refer to it as ‘cinnamon.’ I chose to keep ‘cinnamon’ because it feels wrong to say “Chinese cinnamon” and too stiff to use ‘cinnamon cassia.’ I also have never heard of or seen ‘Chinese cinnamon’ in stores. Is there a difference? Is ‘دارسين’ Iraqi dialect for ‘cinnamon’ or is it for a specific kind of cinnamon?
I also had trouble with the verb درخ. I could not find an English definition in an print or online dictionary, I couldn’t find an Arabic definition in online dialect resources. I asked my fellow Arabic translators and no one really had an answer. Since the phrase was “ندقه (ندرخه أو نطحنه)” (“mash them [**** or grind them]), I chose ‘smush’ since it’s an informal synonym of mash. Does anyone know this word? I’m not very familiar with the Iraqi dialect.