Another variation, from 13th-century Aleppo, on my favourite medieval dish, the jūdhāb (جوذاب; also jūdhāba/جوذابة ), which was Persian in origin but was already popular in Abbasid times and travelled all over the medieval Muslim world, as attested by the number of recipes in cookery books from Egypt, al-Andalus and Syria. It came in many guises but usually involved a chicken being roasted over a pudding made with layered bread, fruit, nuts, and sugar.
This particular recipe is quite unusual in that it is made with poppy seeds (خشخاش, khashkhāsh), which are mixed into a sugar syrup, alongside pistachios and saffron — one can add some honey as well (I didn’t , since one pound of sugar was quite sweet enough for me).
When the mixture has thickened, it is placed in between thin flatbreads – ruqāq (رقاق) – which are placed in the oven underneath a roasting plump chicken (also coloured with saffron), whose juices suffuse the pudding. The recipe calls for a tannūr (clay oven), but it is just as easy – and delicious in outcome – to use a conventional kitchen oven.
The contrast in both texture and flavours of the pudding with the chicken really ties things together.
