#medieval arabic
This week, I’m going to be making a simple party dish - recorded by a Syrian writer in the 13th century! Though the dish is described very literally as “gourd dish”, it is, in fact, a delightfully savoury and crunchy snack that can be served at parties alongside a simple yet nutty dipping sauce! Thanks again to Charles Perry for the translation of the original Arabic!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like my recipes, consider checking out my Patreon!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 - 2 courgettes / zucchinis (or 1 bottle gourd / calabash)
½ cup walnuts (finely ground)
½ cup tahini paste
bunch of finely chopped mint
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
lemon juice (to taste)
honey (to taste)
olive oil / sesame oil (for frying)
Method
1 - Prepare Ingredients
To begin making this dish, we need to grind up about a half a cup of walnuts into a fine powder, along with about a tablespoon of cumin seeds, and a tablespoon of coriander seeds. Then, finely mince some fresh mint. All of these ingredients are native to the region in question, i.e. the Near East, and were used throughout history to today!
2 - Prepare Sauce
To make the sauce, simply pour about a cup and a half of tahini paste into a bowl, along with your crushed walnuts, ground cumin, and ground coriander to taste! Squeeze the juice from half a lemon, and add it to the sauce, before tossing in your chopped mint, and get to mixing! Taste this when you’re done to see how bitter it is. If it’s too dry and sour, add a bit of honey to loosen things up a little and sweeten it! Make sure you do this to taste, mind you.
3 - Prepare Gourd
When your sauce is done, we need to deal with the gourd! A common issue in antiquity is the ambiguity over the translation of “gourd” as many gourds we see today come from the New World (i.e. the Americas). However the bottle gourds (or calabash) and courgette (or zucchini) were commonly cultivated in the Mediterranean in the medieval period - with evidence for the courgette dating back to the Hellenistic Period! So for this, I’m using a courgette, as it’s easier to deal with. Slice this into thin segments, about as thin as your little finger.
4 - Fry Gourd
When you’ve cut the segments, coat them in flour, before placing them into a pan filled with sesame oil over high heat. They should foam a little, depending on the water content of your courgette. Let these fry for a minute or two, or until they’re golden brown on one side, before flipping them over and letting them brown on the other side for the same amount of time.
When they’re done, place them on some paper towels or a rack to drain off excess oil for a minute. Plate them up with some of your dipping sauce and dig in!
The finished dish is very light and crisp - and pairs wonderfully with the nuttiness of the sauce! The thinner segments act more like modern-day crisps (or chips, depending on where you’re from), and are a fantastic dish to have at any medieval parties you’re heading off to!
Today, I’ll be taking a look at another recipe from 13th century Syria - and the anonymously written Scents and Flavours Arabic cookbook - the creamy chicken Jurjaniyyah!
The name Jurjaniyyah is derived from an Iranian region - Gorgan - which suggests that this was an imported culinary style, rather than a local recipe! Either way, it’s a fairly simple and tasty dish!
In any case, lets now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Ingredients (Serves 4)
500g yoghurt
½ tablespoon flour dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
½ tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
ground cumin
250g chicken thighs (or cut of your choice)
Method
1 - Bake the Chicken
To begin with, we need to cook our chicken. To do this, season a few thighs of chicken with salt, pepper, and freshly-ground cumin. I’m cooking the meat separately to the sauce, which is unusual for meat-based recipes in this time period - but this is seemingly how the dish was intended to be prepared!
In any case, bake or roast your chicken at 200C for about 30 minutes, or until it’s cooked through!
When it’s cooked, take it out of the oven and let it rest while you make your sauce.
2 - Make the Sauce
Next, we need to make our sauce. Start by placing 500g of Greek yoghurt into a saucepan. Into this, toss a slurry of 1 tbsp flour and 1tbsp water - this will help prevent the sauce curdling as it cooks. Place this over a high heat, and stir it. Contemporary Arabic cookbooks emphasise that you should stir this in a single direction, to reduce the risk of curdling. So stir it until you start to see bubbles forming at the edge.
At this point, turn the heat down to medium, and let it foam up and froth away for about 10 minutes.
3 - Assemble Dish
After 10 minutes, pour in a tablespoon of honey, and a couple of tablespoons of mustard seeds. The original recipe describes the dish as being very pungent, so you can adjust this by increasing or decreasing the amount of seeds you add here!
Place your chicken on a plate, and ladle on some of your sauce. Serve up warm and dig in!
The finished dish is super fragrant, and each mouthful of the sauce has a sharp bite of heat thanks to the mustard seeds. In a sense, it’s almost like horseradish! But overall, it’s more fragrant than it is hot - and acts very creamy!
Mustard seeds have been cultivated throughout the Near East for millennia, and had a variety of uses besides the culinary field. However the popularity of this seed as an ingredient seems to have increased following the occupation of the region by the Roman Empire - as well as subsequent empires and caliphates.
How and why a Persian recipe was recorded in a Syrian cookbook that charts local, regional tastes could suggest that this dish was popular enough at the time of writing in the region that it felt right at home alongside other dishes (such as my chicken with blackberry sauce)
Today, I’ll be making a 13th century cheesecake, from Andalucía - the South of Spain! The original text is from a medieval cookbook, by Ibn Razin al-Tujibi, and the audience seems to be for elite members of society. Though today, it’s a simple and easy cake that anyone can make inside an hour!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1tbsps yeast (or 1/3 cup sourdough starter)
250g ricotta (or other soft white cheese)
honey
olive oil
cinnamon
Method
1 - Prepare Dough
To begin with, we need to make a simple dough. Pour a cup of flour into a bowl, along with a tablespoon of yeast. Dry yeast wouldn’t have been available in antiquity, but wild yeast from a sourdough starter would have been used, and a third of a cup can be used here.
Pour in a cup of room-temperature milk on top of this, along with a splash of olive oil. The original recipe calls for “fat” which can be any one of a huge number of things - like butter, lard, or oils - but olive oil would have also been used. Mix everything together until it takes on a very runny texture. Add a little water if your dough is too dry.
Cover this with a towel and leave it to raise over an hour or so in a warm area.
2 - Assemble Cake
After an hour, go oil up a baking dish. Pour in a ladleful of your dough, and spread it around the base.
On top of this, place a few dollops of ricotta cheese. White cheese is specified here - which again could mean any one of a number of cheeses, but ricotta, or a soft feta, would work well here. Ladle in another layer of dough, before repeating the ricotta process. You can also add some honey between these layers. Though this wasn’t specified, it adds a nice kick of sweetness to the final dish.
Repeat this layering process until you run out of cheese or dough, making sure the top of the cake is covered in a layer of dough.
Place your cake into an oven preheated to 250° C /485° F or as high as your oven will go, and let this bake for a half an hour, rotating it halfway through so it cooks evenly.
3 - Finish Cake
It should be done when the top of it is golden and firm. Pour some honey over the top of this while it’s cooling in the baking dish, and sprinkle some cinnamon over the honey. If you want, you could also use some freshly-ground black pepper which adds a nice warm background to the finished cake.
Leave to cool a bit at room temperature, and serve up!
The finished dish is super light and sweet, and although some of the ricotta didn’t melt completely during the baking process, they have a nice texture when biting into a piece. The cake itself is more like a very light, sweet bread, but is still a really nice and simple dish to make!
