The United Arab Emirates – ASIDA

by Adelina Aida

This dish is the old traditional cuisine of the state ” Al Andulas ”. This dish is very popular among the Arabs and loved it eating by hand. It is actually a dessert rich or honey, butter having a lump of cooked dough. This is a special dessert or a sweet dish snack loved by people because it has very healthy ingredients like honey which is organic and then butter soaked into a dough lump gives it a very rich and tasty texture to the dish. Then we can add nuts some almonds, walnuts, pistachio. We can also add flavors to this dish like rose flavor, cardamom, nutty flavors, etc.

This dish is popular on Muslim / Islamic traditions like Eid, Shabrat, Aqeeqa etc.

This dish is having almost same flavors and texture like a dish, ”GRUEL”

GRUEL

Gruel is a cereal or porridge kind of dish having oats, rice, wheat, barley, rye, etc. They cooked these elements with milk and sugar. Then nuts are added to this mixture. When oats and porridge are cooked enough this came up into a thick semi-solid mixture that is served by adding nuts over it. And the harder version of this dish we can say is ”ASEEDA”

Gruel is a dish eaten in middle east and also in south Africa.

ASEEDA IS POPULAR IN MANY COUNTRIES LIKE

• Saudia Arabia
• Lybia
• Sudan
• Kwait
• somalia
• Yemen
• Tunisia
• Ethiopia
• Indonesia etc

This dish has different way to serve according to the event or regional differences, like the following :

In LYBIA, this dish is cooked in Goat freahly prepared Clarified butter and than dipped into date syrup known as RUB.

RUB

It is very delicious and rich in flavored syrup having fruit extractions like dates, grapes, etc. This RUB or DATE HONEY is usually used as a hallowed or Tabarak.

REGIONAL VARIATIONS OF ASEEDA

As this dish is very popular in the Middle east they have different varieties in making, styling, serving of the same this. Somehow they are having different ingredients used in cooking the same dish. But because of the same origin of the dish, This dish has the same name worldwide which is ”ASEEDA”

YEMEN

In Yemen, this dish is very popular because of the Arabic origin and then the use of the ingredients in it like honey, wheat flour dough, etc. This is cooked on special occasions and served in a huge bowl. They changed this amazing dessert into the savory one. They used the cooked dough into boiling water with salt, then a curry mixture is prepared from tomatoes, chilies, cheese, helba, fenugreek, etc is added over the cooked dough and served on the special dinner table.

TUNISIA

This dish is cooked in Tunisia with honey, butter and tomatoe based sauce which is known as ”Harisa”.

LYBIA

In Lybia, this dish is served with Rub which is DATE HONEY, or Date syrup.

ELEMENTS OF THE DISH

1.Plain Flour Dough

This is a dough lump made up from Plain wheat flour. This flour is knead with luke warm water and then get into hard dough.

2.RUB

Rub is date syrup which is more like honey. We can be called it ”date honey” and date syrup. This is very thick and more sweetened due to dates addition. We can infuse any of the fruit and make a good flavored thick syrup.

3.HONEY

We can add honey instead of using date honey. This is the original version of Aseeda in which simple honey is added to make it sweet and rich in taste.

4.NUTS

Choice of nuts is depends on personal preference. You can ad whatever you want to add into this dish like :

• Almonds
• walnuts
• coconut
• Hazelnut
• Pistachio
• Cashews
• Raisins etc

INGREDIENTS OF THE DISH

Following are the ingredients of the dish :

• Plain wheat flour = 450 grams
• Boiling water = 1 liter
• Butter = 100 grams
• Salt = 1/2 teaspoons
• Honey = 1/2 cup
• date syrup = 1/2 cup
• Almonds = 2 tbsp
• Walnuts = 2 tbsp
• Cashew = 2 tbsp

INSTRUCTIONS

• Add butter in a cooking pot and let it to melt, then add water into that pot having butter.
• Add add flour into boiling water with salt.
• Let it to stir to make a thick buttery dough.
• Slow down the flame and continue it to mix.
• Make a thick tough dough and than put this warm mixture into serving bowl.
• Add honey over it and nuts to make it more rich and delicious.