[Sca-cooks] Not about mooses at all

[david friedman]

Margaret FitzWilliam described someone's attempt at:

>Recipe for a Dish of Chicken or Partridge with Quince or Apple
>
>Leave overnight whichever of the two [birds] you have, its throat slit, in
>its feathers. Clean it and put it into a new pot and throw in two
>spoonfuls of rosewater and half a spoonful of good murri, two spoonfuls of
>oil, salt, a fennel stalk, a whole onion, and a quarter dirham of saffron,
>and water to cover the meat. Then take quince or apple, skin the outside
>and clean the inside and cut it up in appropriate-sized pieces, and throw
>them into the pot. Put it on a moderate fire and when it is done, take it
>away with a lid over it. Cover it with breadcrumbs, a little sifted flour
>and five eggs, after removing some of the yolks. Cook it in the pot, and
>when the coating has cooked, sprinkle it with rosewater and leave it until
>the surface is clear and stands out apart. Ladle it out, sprinkle it with
>fine spices and present it.
>
>
>This is *not* what is staring at me out of the tupperware.
>
>
>So, we go through the recipe step by step.
>
>1) The chicken needs to be whole. If a whole chicken isn't going to work
>(small pots, not available for whatever reason) is a quartered chicken a
>reasonable substitute?

Don't see why not.

...

>3) She's used the murri recipe from _A Drizzle of Honey_, which I have no
>idea of besides having read it. Anybody want to comment on this one?

I haven't seen _A Drizzle of Honey_. Real murri was made by a long
slow process of fermentation, and, as far as I know, has been made by
only one person in the last 500 years. There is a period recipe for
quick fake murri, called Byzantine murri, made from scorched bread
and scorched honey and carob and quince and salt and lots of
different spices (recipe in the Miscellany) which we use for these
recipes; it works fine.

>4) I am reading the breadcrumb/flour/egg thing as a dough to cover, like a
>pot pie. She mixed it in, which is why it tried to set up like cement.

I agree with you.

>5) Lastly, being unfamiliar with Arabic cookery (I am, after all, a
>Norman in Wales), I am not sure what "fine spices" ought to include.

When I have seen "sprinkle with" specific named spices before serving in the
Andalusion cookbook, it has been cinnamon or pepper or both.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook