The last seven Jews of Iraq

Just wanted to let you all know about The Last Jews of Iraq, on Radio 4 this Tuesday at 8pm, presented by Alan Yentob and produced by Hannah Marshall. I was going to be in it—cooking an Iraqi meal. But the documentary's focus changed after Wikileaks published details about the last seven Jews in Iraq.

While it's amazing that there are any Jews in Iraq at all, I also find it incredibly sad that there are only seven. After all, we were there for 2600 years, and in the 1940s, Baghdad was one-third Jewish.

And as I can't go there myself, or speak the language—when I try, my family say I sound like I've got meatballs in my mouth—the only way I can connect is cook the food. Whereupon, of course, I literally have meatballs in my mouth. This is the meal I cooked.

Sambusek bi tawa—chickpea crescents

For the filling, take one can of chickpeas and bash them up with a tablespoon of warm water to a coarse, chunky mash. Chop up four onions small and fry on a very low heat until they are golden. Add them to the chickpeas, and mix in a teaspoon of ground cumin, a teaspoon of turmeric, and salt and pepper.

For the dough, mix 400g self-raising flour and a teaspoon of salt with 250ml lukewarm water. Knead to make a soft dough. Form into a ball, cover with cling film and chill.

Roll the dough out thinly. Use a tumbler to cut out circles. Put a teaspoon of chickpea filling in the middle of each circle and fold it over. Then crimp the ends of each crescent together.

Heat some sunflower oil in a frying pan till it's medium hot and fry the sambusek in batches, turning them over halfway through. When they're golden and puffed on both sides, they're ready to go on a plate covered in a couple of layers of kitchen roll. They're nice warm or cold.

Ras asfoor wiya shwandar—literally "little birds' heads with beetroot", actually beetroot and meatballs

Chop four onions very small. Mix them with 400g of lamb mince, a handful of finely chopped parsley, a teaspoon of allspice, a teaspoon of ground cumin and half a teaspoon of cinnamon. With damp hands, start forming tiny meatballs, putting them on a tray lined with cling film.

Fry an onion, chopped small, gently in sunflower oil. Add the meatballs all at once in one layer. Once they're browned, add boiling water to cover them, as well as about three tablespoons of tomato puree, and a cupful of lemon juice and the same of caster sugar. Season it and taste it; if it's not quite sweet and sour, add more lemon or sugar. Simmer for twenty minutes. Then add cooked beetroot in slices. Simmer it a little longer with the lid off, to reduce it all down. Serve it at once, or reheat it later.

Rice and all that

I made white basmati rice, with half a teaspoon of turmeric to turn it yellow. On top, I scattered barberries which I'd soaked in warm water for an hour then drained and fried very slowly in sunflower oil. Also, an onion, sliced into skinny crescents and fried slowly, with the lid on, till they're dark. And I made a salad out of cucumbers and tomatoes, chopped small, mixed with chopped parsley and mint, and dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and sumac.

Masafan—chewy macaroons.

I've already done the recipe for them here.

For more Iraqi recipes, have a look at my friend Linda Dangoor's lovely cookbook, Flavours of Babylon. Another lovely friend of mine, Marina Benjamin (who blogs at A Garden Among Fires) has written a fantastic history of the Jews of Iraq called Last Days in Babylon and Rachel Shabi (also a friend! also brilliant!) is the author of a book that follows the Iraqi-Jewish story to Israel.