Bringing Medieval Arab Cooking to Life
This recipe from a fifteenth-century Egyptian cookery book is for samosas made with mince, vegetables, sesame oil, vinegar, pepper, and hazelnuts (or almonds). It is a wonderful snack or light lunch. [Ibn Mubārak Shāh, fols. 12v.-13r.]
This is a recreation of a recipe dating from 1226CE for a popular stew, known as the ‘king of dishes’. While it has not survived in contemporary Middle Eastern cuisine, a descendant can be found in the Spanish escabeche, fish (or meat) marinated and cooked in vinegar. The ingredients include chicken, wine vinegar, coriander, ginger, saffron, black pepper, parsley, and rue. Sometimes, it was made with various cuts of meat and garnished with bazmāward (sliced sandwich wraps), sausages, and topped with cheese. Mustard is the condiment of choice. [al-Baghdādī, 1964, pp. 13-4]
A 13th-century dish made with lamb or veal, salt, pepper, coriander, onions, ginger, saffron, spikenard, cinnamon, and rose-water syrup. What is unusual about this recipe is that you use a couscoussier, placing cut onions in the top (colander) pot, and the meat in the bottom one so that the onion juices drip into the meat. Afterwards, it is finished off in the oven. [Andalusian, fol. 51r.]
The pickling liquid contains vinegar, cassia, ginger, cumin, coriander, cloves, rue, citron leaves, celery leaves, mint, and a sweetener like honey or sugar. The eggs were often dyed with saffron, as was done in the recreation. According to the author of the 13th-century Egyptian treatise, these eggs are particularly good as a side with a cold vinegar stew (سكباج, sikbāj).
This was a very popular sweet in the Middle Ages. and is found in several of the cookery books. It is made with sesame oil, toasted flour, honey and rose water. Serve with a sprinkling of pistachios – or saffron-dyed almonds — and coarsely ground sugar. One recipe recommends additional flavouring with rose water and musk, and a dusting of poppy seeds. [Ibn Mubārak Shāh, fol. 19v.]
The mediaeval ancestor to a much-loved present-day sweet, which still bears the same name. The fritters are made by deep-frying dough in a number of different shapes, which are then drenched in honey. You can also vary the colours by adding, for instance, saffron or fennel to turn them yellow or green, respectively. Recipes for these fritters are found in a number of treatises from both the western and eastern Islamic empire, but the recreation is based on instructions from an anonymous 13th-century Andalusian collection.
The author of a 13th-century cook book claimed to have learned this recipe from concubines at the court of the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-‘Adil (1200-1218). It requires a rather unusual citrus fruit called kabbad. However, it works splendidly with whatever large lemons you have to hand. The peel is fried in sesame oil, while the flesh of the lemons is immersed in wine vinegar sweetened with honey or sugar. Other ingredients include (toasted and pounded) hazelnuts, the atraf al-tib spice mix, as well as mint. [Wusla, 2017, No. 8.52]
The dish derives its name from the fact that a mixture of garlic, salt, cinnamon, cassia, spikenard, and eggs is stuffed underneath the skin along the spine of the chicken. It is served on top of citron leaves and decorated with crumbled egg yolks. Before serving, prinkle on some spices and shredded rue. [Andalusian, fol. 12v.]
This recipe from 10th-century Iraq was recommended for people with cold temperaments. It is not difficult to make and can be enjoyed by itself as a sweet. It is very unusual in that it is one of the rare mediaeval recipes requiring wine, in which to soak the ginger. Afterwards, the ginger is cooked with saffron and honey before adding various spices (e.g. saffron, spikenard, black cardamom and pepper). Although the author suggested storing it for a few months, it tastes quite nice already a few days later!
