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<pre>Hello all,

Here is another Syrian recipe, this time for fish.

Again it comes from Clifford A. Wright's web site.

All best, Kaye


http://www.cliffordawright.com/recipes/sam_harra.html <A
HREF="http://www.cliffordawright.com/recipes/sam_harra.html">Click here:
Recipe: Samaka Harra - Spiced Fish</A>

Samaka Harra (Syria) Spiced Fish

The sea at Jeble on the Syrian coast is so unlike the tourist meccas of
Spain's Costa del Sol or the French Riviera. It is desolate, quiet, the waves
pounding against the sea break, hardly different from how it was in 1550,
when a merchantman from Acre might have passed by on his return journey to
Venice. Jeble has a tiny port where a handful of fishermen barely make a
living. The fishing has never been good in the eastern Mediterranean, and
with the lower counts of phosphorus in the water, important for the growth of
plankton that fish live off of, it is worse.

Fayez Sayidat, an architect in Jeble, took me on a walking tour of the old
town, pointing out the centuries-old hammam (public bath), the Mosque of
Sultan Ibrahim, and the raw coastline without a single tourist facility of
any kind as far as the eye could see. I was told that the Arabic name for red
mullet, sultan Ibrahim, comes from this sultan, a rich man who gave up
everything to devote himself to piety nearly a thousand years ago.

For lunch we would return to the house of Fayez's mother-in-law, Amal Halaby,
so I could follow her in making deep-fried sultan Ibrahim and samaka harra.
There are many different recipes for this spiced fish dish popular along the
coast from Latakia in northern Syria to Gaza. Some recipes call for baking
the fish whole, such as this one, and others remove the flesh to make a kind
of fish hash. This recipe of Amal's, mother of my friend Joseph Halabi, used
sea bass and a spiced chili pepper and tomato sauce coating. Amal Halaby
lives with her husband, Shukri, a half block from the Mediterranean Sea and
they often have fish because they are virtually at the port. Because the
catch is so meager, very fresh fish is consumed in Jeble where they are
landed, while Aleppines and Damascenes have only frozen fish available to
them. We ate this samaka harra right off the bone with warm pieces of khubz
'arabi (Arabic flatbread or pita bread).

6 large garlic cloves, peeled
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 fresh red or green long chili peppers, cored and seeded
1 small onion, cut into pieces
1 large, ripe tomato (about 9 to 10 ounces), peeled and seeded
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds
1 whole sea bass or red snapper (about 6 pounds), scaled, gutted, and cleaned
but left whole with head and tail on
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander leaves (Chinese parsley or cilanto)

1. In a mortar, pound the garlic and salt together until mushy. Put the chili
peppers and onion in a food processor and chop finely. Add the tomato and
process in bursts until it is chopped. Remove to a medium-size bowl and stir
in the pounded garlic, tomato paste, and cumin.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Rinse the fish and pat dry with paper
towels. Score the fish in 3 places on each side. Lay the fish in a baking pan
and coat with the olive oil on both sides. Sprinkle with salt and pepper,
then cover with the chili pepper sauce. Bake the fish until the dorsal fin
feels as if it will come off with a tug, about 1 hour, basting with the
accumulated olive oil in the baking pan. Sprinkle with the coriander and
serve.

Variation: Preheat a gas grill on low for 20 minutes or prepare a charcoal
fire. Place the fish on a rack inside a large aluminum baking pan, for
example, the kind you use to roast a whole turkey. Place the aluminum pan on
the grilling grate, draw down the hood or cover, and grill until done, 45
minutes to 1 hour, making sure some smoke can escape through vent holes. The
fish is done when one of the dorsal fins almost comes off when you pull on it.

Makes 6 servings
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