[Sca-cooks] Thumiyya - Andalusi Garlic Chicken

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I'm planning to make Thumiyya from the Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook.
I have a couple questions - and i wondered if anyone else has cooked
this dish.

Here is the translation of the original recipe

Thumiyya

Take a plump hen and take out what is inside it, clean that and leave
aside. Then take 4 uqiyas of peeled garlic and pound them until they
are like brains and mix with what comes out of the interior of the
chicken. Fry it in enough oil to cover, until the smell of garlic
comes out. Mix this with the chicken in a clean pot with salt,
pepper, cinnamon, lavender, ginger, cloves, saffron, peeled whole
almonds both ground and whole, and a little murri naqi. Seal the pot
with dough, place it in the oven and leave it until it is done. Then
take it out and open the pot, pour its contents in a clean dish and
an aromatic scent will come forth from it and perfume the area. This
chicken was made for the Sayyid Abu al-Hasan and much appreciated.

My two questions:
1) What comes out of the chicken? Its innards of course, However,
what is to pounded up with the garlic? Liver of course; heart and
gizzard maybe, probably; intestines and/or other guts as well?

2) The manuscript as it is published in His Grace, Duke Cariadoc's
Cook book compendium, includes a comment by Charles Perry as to the
similarity between this recipe and the French Chicken with 40 cloves
of garlic. If memory serves me, in the latter, the chicken is stuffed
with the whole cloves of garlic.
          My interpretation of the above recipe would be that the
chicken is left whole, but the seasonings, including the garlic
smashed with whatever set of internal organs and fried, are just put
in the pan around or coating the chicken.
          Personally, i would like to use the chicken cut up and mixed
with the seasonings, as in my experience the chicken meat will be
more flavorful. But perhaps the chicken is just meant to be "baked"
whole and the seasonings make a sauce. The recipe doesn't really say
whether the chicken is to be cut up or left whole. In any event, it
doesn't appear to me that the Andalusian recipe calls for the chicken
to be stuffed with the seasonings as the French recipe does.

Comments? Interpretations? Experiences?

Anahita