Today, I’ll be making a simple barley porridge, as recorded by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in the 11th century! This dish shares a lot of similarities to my Sumerian Sasqu recipe from a few months ago, suggesting that it may have been a regional dish in antiquity that has been preserved through the centuries to modernity.

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for more!

Ingredients (for about 3 portions)
6 tbsp barley
1l milk
honey
sliced almonds (garnish)
cardamom seeds

Method
1 - Simmer Milk and Soak Barley
To begin with, we need to prepare our barley. Soak about 5 or 6 tablespoons of barley grains in a bowl of water overnight, to help break them down in the cooking process. So if you want to make this today, you should’ve started this yesterday. Or at least 4 hours beforehand. Drain these before using them!

Then, pour about a litre of milk into a saucepan, and set it over a medium high heat. Though the original recipe uses undescribed milk, I’m using whole-fat cow milk. But sheep and goat milk, or even almond milk, can also be used here! In any case, let everything heat up until it is just about bubbling.

2 - Add Barley and Spices
While the milk is bubbling, go de-husk a few tablespoons of cardamom pods - using the seeds themselves in the dish. Keep these seeds aside for later!
When the milk is at a rolling boil, pour in your soaked and drained barley, along with your cardamom seeds.

3 - Serve up
Serve up in a bowl of your choice, garnish with a few scoops of sliced almonds, and dig in while it’s still hot! Add in some honey, to taste, if the dish isn’t to your taste!

The finished dish is a delightfully soft yet fragrant and sweet dish! The barley has broken down slightly into a toothsome paste, and the taste of the cardamom gives the talbina a wonderful floral kick to each mouthful.
The original sources for this dish describe it moreso as comfort food - something that is rarely recorded in medieval cookbooks! Typically, contemporary documents would describe similar dishes, or things that would pair with the recipe in question. However Ibn Sina (Avicenna), along with numerous other contemporary Arabic writers, explicitly states that this dish is not a day-to-day thing, rather one that “relieves some sorrow and grief”

“The talbina gives rest to the heart of the patient and makes it active and relieves some of his sorrow and grief.” [Saheeh al-Bukhaaree (5325)]

Though I used honey here, pureed and stewed dates may have been used as well - which we can see in my earlier sasqu recipe.

11th century Byzantine honey cakes

Today, I’ll be taking a look at a medieval Byzantine honey cake - which itself is based on an earlier Greek iron-age cake, amphiphon. This is going to be a light, fluffy cake with a rich, honey flavour!

In any case, let’s now take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what you see, consider supporting me over on Patreon!

Ingredients

1 cup flour

¾ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

½ cup walnuts

salt

orange rind

1 - Cream the Sugar and Butter

To begin with, toss about ¾ of a cup of room-temperature butter into a mixing bowl. Into this, place about ¾ of a cup of sugar. Mix everything together using a wooden spoon, smearing the butter into the sugar along the side of the bowl. Do this until it takes on a rich, creamy texture. At this stage, beat three eggs into the mixture, taking care to mix them all thoroughly before progressing!

2 - Add Dry Ingredients

Next, toss in about a cup’s worth of plain flour, along with a pinch of salt. Mix this together into a smooth batter. If it’s looking a little dry, add a tiny splash of milk to rehydrate it a little.

When the whole thing is combined, and still sticking to the side of the bowl, toss in about a half a cup of roughly crushed walnuts. While it’s stated that walnuts are served alongside this dish, it’s likely that they would have also been baked into the cakes, which help soften the nuts.

3 - Prepare Tin

Using the butter wrapper, grease a baking tin. While metal tins were likely used in late antiquity/the early medieval period, stoneware would have also been widely used! The original recipe doesn’t seem to discuss baking instruments, so I opted for using a shallow square dish.

When it’s been greased sufficiently, grate the rind of an orange into the dish. Though oranges and lemons were seemingly grouped together as “citron” in antiquity, we can assume that cooks would have known the difference between the two. So, I used an orange, as it pairs nicely with the honey and the walnuts here.

4 - Bake

When the tin is prepared, pour your batter into the dish. Make sure it’s spread evenly across it, so it all bakes at the same rate. If you want, you can dust the top of your cake with ground cinnamon. Keep in mind that this will brown faster than your cake will, so it may look burnt in the oven, but really it will only be barely cooked!

Place your tin into the centre of an oven preheated to about 350F or 175C for about a half an hour, or until the edges of your cake have browned and turned crisp!

5 - Finish Cake

Take it out of the oven when it’s done, and let it cool to room temperature. But before it’s fully cooled, pour a good amount of honey over the whole thing! This will let the whole cake become infused with the sweetness of the honey!

When the cake has fully cooled, cut it into segments, and serve up with some walnuts!

The finished cakes are wonderfully light and sweet! The caramelised orange rind on the base gives a wonderful zesty kick to the honey taste. The cake rises a fair bit due to the number of eggs used, but retains a great airy texture.

Today, I’m making a quick and easy accompaniment to any medieval Irish meals you have planned - a bowl of praiseach (pronounced: prashock)! The basis of this is a simple savour porridge, that’s then flavoured with some sautéed mustard greens! Although wild mustard (charlock) greens are usually used, any suitably pungent edible greens can be used!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients (for 4 portions)
Mustard Greens / Turnip Greens
2 cups oatmeal (or oat groats)
2 cups milk (or water)
butter
Method

1 - Prepare the Greens
To begin with, we need to chop some greens. Though praiseach is normally made using wild mustard (charlock), you can also use normal mustard greens, or even turnip greens (like I’m using here). They all have similar taste profiles - being pungent, slightly spicy greens - that react similarly when being cooked.

In any case, chop your greens finely, removing any untoward-looking leaves that escaped your prep-work.

2 - Sautee the Greens
When your greens of choice have been chopped to your liking, toss a knob of Irish butter into a pan, and let it melt. You can of course use local butter, I’m just totally not biased. When the butter has melted, toss in your chopped greens, and let everything sauté away over a medium heat for only a couple of minutes. Your greens may shrivel up, but this is normal! Take them off the heat when they’ve been coated in butter, and are lovely and fragrant.

3 - Prepare Praiseach
When your greens are cooling off, go start making your porridge base. Toss equal parts of oats and water (or milk, if you want to be fancy) into a pot, and place this over a medium-high heat. Keep stirring this so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of your pot.

While I used rolled oats here, which may have had a similar analogue in antiquity, whole oat groats would have been more commonly used (i.e. the whole, unhusked grains themselves, as opposed to the modern rolled, husked, and crushed grains used here). This would have had a higher fibre content than this dish.

When your oats have been cooked, but are still about 10 minutes from being served, toss in your cooked greens. Stir all of this together, and let it infuse for ten more minutes.

Serve up warm, in a bowl of your choice, and dig in!

The finished dish is quite thin and easy-going. It’s not overly flavourful, but has a nice background heat thanks to the mustard greens. By sautéing them, you cut the edge off the taste, and let it mellow out among the oats.

Oats are a wild grain, and can be grown in relatively poor-quality soils - such as those in parts of the midlands and west of Ireland - and as a result were seen as a “peasant grain” for much of the medieval period. Porridge is one of these peasant dishes that persist into the modern day, as it’s still a simple yet filling dish that can be altered with the addition of different ingredients!

This week, I’m going to be recreating a simple carrot and coriander soup that was popular in medieval French cuisine - the simple Potage de Crécy. Although I’m using orange carrots, which were rare in antiquity, carrots, parsnips, or any combination of these would work well here!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for some more recipes!

Ingredients (for 2-3 portions)

1 onion (or an equal volume to the amount of carrots) chopped
3 carrots (or an equal volume to the amount of onions) diced
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
ground coriander
500ml stock (e.g. chicken, vegetable, etc.)

Method
1 - Prepare and Cook Onion
To begin with, we need to peel and chop one whole onion. Onions of all kinds were a staple of most cuisines from the neolothic period to modernity, as they’re hardy, filling vegetables that have a multitude of uses. In any case, chop this into fine chunks, so they cook evenly. When this is done, toss some olive oil into a pot, and heat it up over a medium high heat.

When the oil is shimmering, toss a couple of crushed cloves of garlic into the oil, along with your onions. On top of this, sprinkle some salt, some freshly ground black pepper, and some freshly ground coriander. Put all of this back onto a medium high heat for a few minutes while you deal with your carrots.

2 - Prepare and Cook Carrots
Go peel a few carrots - aim for about an equal amount of carrots to onions. When they’re peeled, slice them into discs - making sure they’re all the same size, so they cook evenly. Although orange carrots were fairly rare in antiquity, they’re the dominant strain today. But remember that throwing in some parsnips or heriloom carrots wouldn’t hurt either!

When your carrots are prepared, add them to your onions when the pot smells lovely and fragrant, and the onions have turned translucent. On top of your carrots and onions, pour about 500ml of a soup stock of your choice. I went with chicken stock here, to add a more meaty background taste, but any stock would work well enough here!

3 - Cook
Place your pot over a high heat, and let it come to a boil. When it hits a rolling boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for about 30 minutes, or until a knife, when stabbed into a piece of carrot, comes out easily.

Serve up in a bowl of your choice, garnish with a little sprig of parsley or cilantro, and dig in!

The finished soup is rather sweet, thanks to the carrots and onions, and has a lovely zesty taste thanks to the coriander. The broth thickened up nicely, and the carrot chunks softened into a toothsome mouthful.

This week, I’ll be taking a look at another medieval Syrian dish - this time, a simple pistachio sauce chicken bake! It’s a sweet and savoury take on a staple of near eastern cuisine at the time - fitting for most people in the medieval period to be able to make!

As with a few other recipes like this, many thanks to Charles Perry’s translations from the original Arabic textbooks!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what I make, please consider supporting me over on Patreon!

Ingredients
250g chicken (any cut of meat)
300g pistachios
salt
pepper
ground cumin
ground coriander
honey

Method
1 - Season Chicken and Bake
To begin with, we need to prepare our chicken. Do this by cutting your cuts of meat with a knife, before seasoning your cuts with equal amounts of salt, pepper, ground cumin, and ground coriander. The original recipe doesn’t make note of any spices, but we can infer from elsewhere in the cookbook that cumin and coriander formed the core of medieval Syrian cuisine. So, season this liberally! When this is done, place your chicken onto a lightly greased pan, and then into the centre of an oven preheated to 180C for about 20 minutes. While this is cooking, go prepare your pistachios!

2 - Grind Pistachios, Make Sauce
Next, shell 300g worth of pistachios. This will result in a significantly lighter amount of shelled nuts, but this is suitable for about two or three portions of meat.

In any case, when they’re shelled, go crush them into a fine powder in a mortar and pestle. Try and go for a very fine sandy texture.

When these have been ground up, toss them into a pot, along with a tablespoon or two of honey, as well as a small splash of water if everything looks too dry. Put all of this over a medium heat, and let it cook away until the honey softens and bubbles. Keep it stirring, so the honey doesn’t burn onto the bottom of the pot. This should only take about 15 minutes to cook - if the sauce starts looking a little brown, quickly take it off the heat so it doesn’t burn. It’s safer to do this slow and low, rather than fast and high.

3 - Assemble Dish
When the chicken and the sauce is done, pour a generous amount of the sauce onto a plate, before arranging your chicken on top. Garnish with a few whole pistachios, and a few sprigs of parsley, and dig in!

The finished dish is a succulent and sweet meal, with a wonderful floral sensation from the spices. The original recipe claims the chicken should be cooked in the sauce itself. This could be done, but you’d probably need more sauce than I’ve made here - it would result in a cut of meat that was tenderly stewed, with the seasoning leeching out into the pistachio and honey sauce. I opted for preparing these separately, as it was more sanitary to do on the day. It’s just as likely that it was prepared like this in the medieval period as well, but was not recorded in the original text.

Today, I’ll be taking a look at medieval Ottoman cuisine - specifically the food seen in ottoman courts! The recipe in question is cılbır, or poached eggs with herbal yoghurt. This is a simple yet tasty recipe that is still eaten today in Turkey!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Consider checking out my Patreon if you like these recipes!

Ingredients (for 3 portions)
3 eggs
150g greek yoghurt
freshly chopped parsley (or dill, or cilantro)
2 cloves garlic
ground coriander

Method
1 - Make the Yoghurt
To begin with, we need to make a simple yoghurt for the eggs to sit on. Start this by finely chopping some fresh parsley - dill or cilantro would have also been used! Toss this into your yoghurt, along with a clove or two of crushed garlic. Mix all of this together, until it’s very well combined. Leave it to sit aside while you poach your eggs.

2 - Poach the eggs
Place a pot of hot water over a high heat until it boils. At a rolling boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer gently.

There’s a couple of methods of poaching eggs. I cracked an egg into a ramekin, and then dropped this into a ladle, before lowering into the water. Some of the whites of the egg became spidery and flyaway, but don’t worry! This will look amazing and silky when it’s out of the water.

Let the egg cook for a couple of minutes, before draining it and dunking it in cool water - to stop the yolk from becoming overcooked.

3 - Assemble the dish
Place a nice dollop of the herby yoghurt onto a plate, and place one of your poached eggs atop this. Sprinkle with a bit of freshly-ground coriander, and dig in with some fresh bread!

The finished dish is deliciously light yet filling. The herbs really pairs well with the texture of the egg. Although rather plain looking, it’s an easy yet luxurious way of presenting an otherwise simple dish in antiquity.

Çılbır is still eaten in turkey today, proving it’s role as a cheap yet filling meal for many throughout the centuries.

Ottoman cuisine formed as a fusion of Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and Central Turkic motifs in the early Medieval Period, which is exemplified here - using an array of culinary styles that are seen elsewhere in the region (such as Greek tzatziki being prepared in much the same way as this recipe, with the addition of mint and cucumber)

Today, I’ll be making a quick side-dish from Rome, as recorded by Apicius! He has a few ways of preparing mushrooms, but this is one of the more flavourful methods he shows us!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Consider checking out my Patreon page!

Ingredients
500g mushrooms (I used chestnut mushrooms)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar (or malt vinegar)
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
fresh coriander or parsley

Method

1 - Chop the Mushrooms
This is a rather simple recipe, but to begin with, we need to prepare our mushrooms. I used chestnut mushrooms, sliced into thin segments, but button or Portobello mushrooms may also be similar to what was available in antiquity, along with edible morels. If you have smaller mushrooms, you can skip slicing these, and proceed with cooking them as is!

2 - Sauté   Mushrooms
Into a hot pot, pour a generous amount of olive oil - enough to coat the base. On top of this, toss your mushrooms. Sprinkle this with a bit of salt to help draw the moisture out of the mushrooms, before placing the pot over a medium heat. Stir everything around gently, so the mushrooms sweat out their moisture. Depending on what mushrooms you use, this may result in them being crushed slightly. Sauté these for about 3 -5 minutes.

3 - Sauté other ingredients
When your fungal friends have taken on a bit of colour, toss in some fresh coriander, and some freshly-ground black pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar, before stirring everything together and returning to the heat for another 3-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn your mushrooms!

4 - Serve!
When your mushrooms are cooked, take these out of the cooking liquid, and place them in a bowl. Put the liquid over a high heat and let it boil down and reduce into a sauce.

Pour the sauce over your mushrooms, and dig in with some bread!

The finished mushrooms are super tender and flavourful - the vinegar really amplifies their meaty texture. The chestnut mushrooms I used retained a little bite to them, which was a welcome sensation!

Although the original recipe states that you should remove the coriander when serving the mushrooms, I chose to leave a few of them in so the dish retains a little bit of colour. The vinegar doesn’t have a very sharp taste once the sauce has thickened and reduced, and gives the mushrooms a lovely dark glaze.

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 an Etruscan dish - which is preserved through Roman cuisine through to modernity! The simple testaroli - a rudimentary ancestor to the pasta that we know and love today!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients (for two servings)
½ cup plain flour
½ cup wholemeal flour
1 cup water
pesto

Method

1 - Prepare the Batter
To begin with, we need to make the batter. To do this, toss a half a cup of plain white flour into a bowl, along with some wholemeal flour. Mix in an equal amount of water, to form a thin slurry.

2 - Oil the Pan and Make the testaroli
When the batter is ready, pour a ladleful into a pan that’s been oiled with olive oil. Spread this into a very thin layer, by tilting the pan around. Cook the thin layer of batter for a minute or two over a high heat, or until the edges start to firm up. Don’t cook it all the way through! Flip it over and let the other side cook for another minute or two.

When it’s done, you can eat it as is! Serve up warm with a dollop of pesto - that you ideally would have made following my recipe for it. This serving - technically speaking - isn’t testaroli, but actually placenta(pronouncedplakenta) which is a Roman dish prepared in the same way. It’s likely that this evolved from Etruscan assimilation by the Romans in the Bronze Age.

3 - Cut Testaroli
For a more modern testaroli, place your dough disks and dissect them with a knife. Score them a few times with a sharp knife, before cutting them at an angle, so you make a bunch of thin dough-diamonds.

4 - Cook Testaroli

Toss your dough diamonds into a pot of boiling water, and let them cook away for a few minutes. Since this is fresh pasta, it won’t take too long to cook. Drain them using a colander or a slotted spoon, place them into a bowl, and serve up warm with a large dollop of pesto!

The finished dish is delicious and tender, and is a really quick and simple thing to make! It’s also very filling! Given that it seems to have been originally an “accidental” recipe - based on modern scholarship anyway - it definitely proved to be a staple of Etruscan cuisine. Something that can be made using only a few ingredients which is also very filling would have been a staple in the diets of the Etruscans.

Today, I’ll be making a medieval drink from 13th century Egypt - and is still drunk today! A simple, refreshing drink called subiyah/ It was originally made to drink during Ramadan - a holy month of fasting in the Islamic calendar - but this is able to be enjoyed around the year! It’s simple to make, and has a very nice crispness to it!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

3-4 slices of sourdough bread (crusts removed)

3-4 cups water

1 tsp cardamom pods

fresh mint

fresh parsley

Method

1 - Soak and Strain Bread

To begin with, de-crust three slices of sourdough bread and tear the bread into small chunks, before placing them in a bowl. The original recipe requires “bread” and gives no elaboration - so I went for sourdough because it has a more distinct taste than a regular slice of white bread.

In any case, pour in three cups of water into your bowl to soak the bread. Leave all this to get soggy for about thirty minutes. After thirty minutes, your bread chunks should be saturated with water, and practically falling apart. At this point, strain the bread water into a container that can be easily sealed. Make sure you remove as many solids from the mixture as you can.

2 - Combine Aromatics and Spices before fermenting

Next, toss some parsley leaves into your container with the water, along with some fresh mint, and a handful of cardamom pods that you’ve crushed slightly. Mix everything together, and seal up. I used a mason jar for this, because it’s convenient - but in antiquity, people would have used a damp cloth placed over the opening of the container.

Leave the container aside for a day or two at room temperature. This will let the whole thing steep, letting the flavours mingle.

When it’s done steeping, pour your subiyah through a strainer, removing the herbs, pods, and any remaining large chunks of bread. Serve up chilled, with a sprig of mint and take a sip!

The finished drink is quite mild tasting, but has a very soothing background sensation. It’s very light, and looks a lot like lemonade. A wonderful drink to have on a warm day!

Today, I’ll be making an Egyptian dish that dates to the pre-Dynastic period (the bronze age) - a simple herb and egg omelette that’s still eaten today: “eggah” (in modern Egyptian Arabic). The first records of this dish come from early Arab writers, discussing a much older dish!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients

6 eggs
1 onion
fresh parsley or cilantro
ground cumin
ground coriander
salt
pepper
olive oil

Method

1 - Chop and cook onion
To begin with, chop a single onion in half, and peel off it’s outer skin. Then slice and dice the onion into small pieces, making sure they’re all the same size.

Then, pour some olive oil into a pot, and place it over a medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, toss your onion into it and let it sauté away while you mince your parsley. Or coriander, if it doesn’t taste like soap to you.

When your onion is soft and translucent and fragrant, toss in your parsley. Let everything sauté away over medium-high heat until the parsley wilts slightly. Leave it aside to cool a bit while you deal with your eggs.

2 - Mix Ingredients
Crack six eggs into a bowl while your onions are cooling. In antiquity, Egyptians would have had access to wildfowl and dove eggs - but chicken eggs work just as well. Next, toss in a tablespoon or two of ground cumin and ground coriander. On top of this, add a tablespoon of flour to help thicken things up. When the onion and parsley mix is cool, toss them into your egg mixture, and whisk them to combine.

3 - Prepare Baking Dish and Bake
Pour some olive oil into a baking tin, and spread it around. Next, pour in your egg mixture. It should settle evenly. Place this tin into the centre of an oven preheated to about 180C/356F and let it cook for about 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.

It should be done when the top has puffed up and turned a lovely golden brown.

Take the dish out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. The top of this will collapse and deflate, but don’t worry, this is what’s meant to happen! Cut it into slices, and serve up warm!

The finished dish is very light and fluffy, with a slight sweetness thanks to the onions. Modern eggah has tomatoes and peppers included in the recipe - but neither of these were available to the region until the Columbian Exchange of the 15th century onwards.

However, early Arabic records about the dining habits of pre-Islamic Egyptian populations references a dish of baked eggs and herbs - which effectively suggests a pre-existing dish like this that was eventually adapted into the eggah we know today!

This week, I’m recreating some Akkadian Kukku - or “butter-cakes” - which would have been offered to deities, much like the qullupu I made a while ago, which were used in the worship of Inanna! However this dish seems to have been eaten by Akkadian rulers, rather than offered to deities.

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

½ cup hazelnuts

½ cup walnuts

1/3 cup honey

½ cup butter

½ cup raisins (or sultanas)

1 egg

dates (for decoration)

Method

1 - Grind the Nuts

To begin with, we need to crush our hazelnuts and walnuts in a mortar and pestle until they take on a sandy consistency. I left a few chunks in my batch - as you can see here - but I cannot recommend you do this, as it makes it rather difficult to take out of your baking tin later on! So, do as I say, not as I do in this case.

In any case, hazelnuts and walnuts would have been cultivated in this region in the Bronze Age, and were used frequently in the civilisations cuisines too!

Place this into a bowl for later, while you cream your butter and honey

2 - Cream the Butter, Mix the Ingredients

Place ¼ of a cup of butter into a large mixing bowl, and pour 1/3 of a cup of honey on top of this. Using a wooden spoon, mash this together until it takes on a smooth, creamy texture.

At this point, pour in your crushed walnuts and hazelnuts, a half a cup of raisins, and a single egg. Also toss in a cup’s worth of flour. Mix all of this together until it forms a wet dough. If it’s looking a little dry as you’re mixing it, you can add a little milk to the mix to bring it together - but no more than a quarter of a cup! You’ll wind up with something that’s more like a batter than a dough.

3 - Prepare Tin and Bake

When your dough is done, butter up a baking tin, and scoop in your dough. Smooth down the top a little, before sticking some dates on top of this. There’s no real pattern to replicate, so scatter them as organised or chaotically as you want!

Place your dough into the centre of an oven preheated to 130C / 275F for half an hour, or until the kukku takes on a lovely golden complexion.

Leave the pan to cool before you take your bake out of the tin - this will help it retain its integrity.

The finished dish is really soft and light, and has a lot of similarities to the Palace Cake from Ur I recreated a few months ago. These cakes are delicious if you drizzle honey over the tops of them before you eat them, so the dough gets imbued with sweet honey goodness.

This week, I’ll be taking a look at a Byzantine baked cheesecake - that’s quick, simple, and very tasty! It seems to be based on an earlier Greek recipe for a baked cheesecake, but was adapted to suit the tastes of Medieval Byzantine elite cuisine!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients
500g ricotta cheese (or myzithra, anthotyro cheese)
150g honey
3 eggs
flour
cinnamon
butter (to grease baking tin)

Method
1 - Whisk Ingredients
To begin with, we need to place our cheese in a bowl. I used ricotta here, because it has a good texture and is widely available, but other soft Greek cheeses would work well - such as myzithra or anthotyro.
Into this, pour 150g of honey, and whisk it well. Crack an egg one at a time into the bowl, whisking it until it’s well combined before adding two more. Chicken eggs would have been used in this period, along with wildfowl and pidgeon eggs - so you can use these here too if you happen to have any.
Finally, to thicken the mixture up a little, add a tablespoon or two into the mixture, whisking together as you go. I used plain wheat flour, which has a lower bran content than what would have been widely available in Late Antiquity, but it results in a smoother, finer cake when you’re finished.

2 - Bake Cheesecake
Preheat your oven to 180C/356F while you pour your mixture into a tin.

Make sure you grease your baking tin before you pour in your batter. Your batter should be silky smooth as you’re pouring it in. Smooth out the top, and place it into the middle of your preheated oven. Let this bake for about 40-50 minutes, depending on your oven. It should be done when the top of it has turned a lovely golden colour, and the centre of the cake doesn’t jiggle when you wiggle it. The top of it will slowly fall down while it’s cooling, but don’t worry - that’s what’s meant to happen!

3 - Decorate Cheesecake
Let the cake cool for about 5 minutes in the pan before you try and take it out and top it. When it’s cooled slightly, pour some more honey over the top, along with some ground cinnamon. Cinnamon would have been used by the elites of Byzantine society, as they would have had more access to expensive spices than Western Europe (given the Byzantine Empire’s proximity to the spice trade routes of the Near and Middle East).
In any case, serve up warm and dig in!