[Sca-cooks] thumiyya

[Marilyn Traber]

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My take on it is that the garlic is what is pounded into a rough paste, and
then mixed with the innards and fried up, not that the innards are pouned
with the garlic. I would figure on the heart, liver, kidneys, globular fat,
gizzard and the contents of the uterous [shell-less eggs.]

I would probably cut the chicken into serving pieces and coat well with the
garlic glop and innards, seal in the pot and bake slowly. I sort of get the
vague feeling that most of the chicken dishes and meat dishes were made of
cut pieces rather than whole huge pieces, as the style of eating is with
fingers and like the romans, it is easier to eat smaller pieces than to fish
out huge pieces of meat and figure out how to carve them at the table. Of
course they could have cooked it whole inthe kitchens andthen carved, but if
you are making this for a hundred people, it would be worlds easier to have
a servant pond a whonking lot of garlic while the chicken is being cleaned,
then the glop and innards being fried up while the bird is disjointed, and
then put into a really large vessel  or three and cooked full-on hobart
god-kettle style.
margali


the quote startrs here:
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?
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