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najia-cooks
Oct 22, 2023
[ID: A greyish brown stew presented alongside flatbread, red pepper paste, green peppers, and carrot sticks. End ID]
سماقية / Summagiyya (Gazan stew with chard, chickpea, sumac, and 'lamb')
Summagiyya (سُمَّاقِيَّة; also translitered "sumagiyya", "sumaghiyyeh" or "sumaqiyya") is one of the signature dishes of the Gaza strip, in particular Gaza City. It consists of lamb, chard, and chickpeas in a sumac-infused broth; savor and zest is added by a dagga of dill seeds, garlic, and peppers, and nutty depth by a generous drizzle of red tahina. The resulting stew is thick, earthy, and slodgily grey (due to the green chard and red sumac)—it also has the characteristic sourness of much Gazan cuisine.
Summagiyya is most often prepared during holidays, especially Eid al-Fitr; it's an excellent make-ahead dish for these occasions, since it's even better once its flavors have had time to meld and mellow overnight. It is served cold alongside fresh vegetables, and eaten by using flatbread to scoop up each bite. This recipe provides a spiced seitan recipe to replace the lamb, but you may also use any lamb or beef substitute of your choice.
Today, summagiyya is often prepared with Israeli white tahina, as decades of punitive import laws, taxes, and restrictions have enforced Palestine's status as a consumer, rather than an producer, of food products. Israeli tariffs on, and confiscations of, Palestinian goods have forced those tahina factories that survived to import sesame seeds rather than using locally grown crops, even as they export the best of their product to Israel. The dubbing of foods such as tahina and hummus as culturally "Israeli" cuisine works to hide this exploitative relationship, and cement an Israeli national identity through the subsuming and erasure of Palestinian existence. It is for this reason that Emad Moussa writes that Palestinian cuisine has a role in "protecting against a people's very extinction."
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has put out an urgent call for donations to provide medical supplies to Palestinian hospitals when supply lines reopen. Also contact your representatives in the USA, UK, and Canada.
Ingredients:
For the soup:
Sumac berries can be found in the spice section of a halal grocery store. If you're unable to locate whole berries, pre-ground will do.
For the dagga:
Dill seeds may be found at a halal, south Asian, or speciality European grocery store. They are commonly used in Indian food and as a pickling spice. At a south Asian grocery store they may be labelled soyo, suva, shepu, or savaa.
For the lamb:
Pomegranate molasses is simply pomegranate juice that has been reduced to a thick consistency. It may be found in the sauces section of a halal grocery store.
Instructions:
Soak dried chickpeas in cool water overnight, or in just-boiled water for an hour. Drain and re-cover with water, and boil for 30-45 minutes, until almost fully cooked. Drain and set aside.
Simmer sumac seeds in enough water to cover by a couple inches for about an hour, until the water is dark red. Blend the seeds and water together, then strain the mixture through a cheesecloth.
If you're using ground sumac, skip the blending step. Use a cheesecloth or very fine metal sieve (such as one intended for brewing tea) to remove the ground spice from the water.
Whisk the flour into the sumac-infused water.
For the lamb:
Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients other than stock and stir briefly. Add enough stock to produce a soft, smooth dough.
Knead by hand on a clean surface, or put in a stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium-low, for about 5 minutes. You should see stringy strands begin to form in the dough.
Allow to rest, covered, for 5-10 minutes to encourage gluten formation. Knead for another 3 minutes. Do not over-knead.
Tear the dough into bite-sized pieces.
Stringy seitan being pulled apart into pieces.
You may also shape the dough into a slab and cube it with a sharp knife—the lamb or beef used in summagiyya is usually cubed—but I prefer the texture of torn seitan to sliced.
Steam the seitan pieces for 10 minutes in a bamboo steamer or using a metal steamer basket. Place the bamboo steamer in the bottom of a wok and cover its base by about ½" (1 cm), then raise the heat to boil the water; lower the heat to keep the water at a simmer. If using a steamer basket, place it over the opening of a pot containing a couple inches of water and bring it to a simmer. Start the timer when the water begins simmering.
Heat olive oil on medium-high and sear the steamed seitan pieces, turning as necessary, until deeply browned on all sides. Set aside.
For the soup:
Fried seitan pieces.
You can save a step here by searing the raw seitan, then returning it to the pot after you've fried the onions to simmer it rather than steaming. I found that this produced a mushier texture