[Sca-cooks] Message from Paul Buell....

[Philippa Alderton]

I've been talking to Paul about a couple of things,
and I asked him:

PS- Reading recipe 195 Yellow Hen (from Soup-PDA)-
what, if any difference does the color of the chicken
make?

Paul- Yes, the color of the chicken matters. Different
colored chickens have different medicinal properties.
Also some of the meats are darker, thus regarded as
different too.

Also, regarding cookware, I was asking about Dutch
Oven-style pots, and he said:

Paul: Pots: I have been looking at manuscript
paintings, etc., from the period,and the pots are
always shown open top, boiling away over a fire. No
evidence that the Mongols or Timurids ever put them
down into the coals, with coals on top. Now the
Mongols did cook whole goats this way, hair on.

He's also coming out with a dictionary, which should
be fairly affordable:

Paul:Present project is "An Historical Dictionary of
the Mongol World Empire," due to the publisher 1 July
and out later in the year. Has entries on food
and sex (no, Virginia, the Mongols did not do it on
horse back....) Have also been working on the
translation of another recipe book.

About the other book? It should be a while.

Paul:Other recipe collection is the Jujia biyong
shilei, from Late Yuan. I and a bunch of people are
translating when I get time. Recipes more easily
cookable.

He also gave me some advice on one of the more
interesting recipes in "Soup".

Paul:It is the Bal-po (Kashmir) curry. Use it to stuff
the cuqmin bread, made with ground fennel in the
dough. Yummy. I have some recipes from another book
too that are more cookable. Remind me after you have
gone through some in the book. Remember that cooking
instructions are a little vague in places. You have to
experiment and learn how to cook the food in general.
Watch out with the chickpeas, they burn very easily.
What I would do for those kind of recipes is make a
mutton broth, with spices. Then I would remove the leg
of lamb and then take off the meat. Then I would add
chickpeas, or whatever else to thicken. Next I would
cook slowly, and then when the desired thickness had
been achieved, I would put the removed meat on top,
plus salt, vinegar, etc. For the bread foods,
particularly the dumplings and things, learn how to do
this from a modern Turkish cookbook. They work yogurt
into the dough and roll out a thousand times. Once you
have the skins, then you stuff and steam or whatever.
There is a basil and cream sauce somewhere in the book
that is really good. Modern Turks do similar things.

So, that's what's happening with Paul, folks.

Hope this supplements some of your information.

Phlip





=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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