[Sca-cooks] A Jewish Dish of Chicken

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

So, we ran a first test of the chicken dish this weekend.

from Perry's translation of the Andalusian manuscript, webbed on
Cariadoc's site:
	Clean the chicken [p. 20, recto] and pound its entrails with
	almonds, breadcrumbs, a little flour, salt, and cut-up fennel and
	cilantro. Beat it with six eggs and the amount of a quarter ratl of water.
	Then expose the chicken over the fire a little and place it in a clean pot
	with five spoonfuls of fresh oil, and do not stop turning it on the fire
	in the oil until it is well browned. Then cover the contents of the pot
	with stuffing prepared earlier and leave it until it is bound together and
	wrinkled. Ladle it out and put the stuffing around it, garnish with cut
	rue and fennel, eyes of mint, and toasted almonds, and present it, God
	willing.

So, what I did:

- I had decided to use chicken pieces because I couldn't figure out how to
handle a whole chicken and thought maybe it would be ok to use chicken
pieces instead. Boneless pieces are just easier to deal with, though I
realize that they take less time to cook. We defrosted about 4 pounds of
chicken breast (ok, we had thought it was boneless chicken breasts but it
turned out to be chicken breast tenders).

- After conversation with the list and with Sarah bas Mordechai who was
raised Orthodox Jewish, we decided that only the liver and the gizzards
would have been used of the innards. We bought chicken livers, but
couldn't find gizzards.

- Chicken livers (in modern times) are 'koshered' by searing with a
flame-- we seared them in a cast-iron pan because we were working with an
electric stove.

- I chose to grind the almonds finely, and to use storebought fluffy cheap
white bread for the bread crumbs.

- we didn't have fennel because I forgot to get it. We also didn't have a
tool for mashing the cilantro leaves so they were just cut up with a
knife, not finely minced.

So:

The stuffing:
- about 12 slices of bread, some toasted, ground to breadcrumbs
- about a cup of ground almonds
- leaves from 1/3 of a large bunch of cilantro
- about 1 tablespoon of ground coriander.
- pinch flour
- 4 seared chicken livers, minced and squished
- 6 eggs

I realized too late that 6 eggs were probably too much for this mixture
(we had to add the last 6 slices of bread to make it stuffing-y). So no
water was added. If I do this again for the same size servings, I would
add some water but less eggs.

We sauteed the chicken in a little oil in a deep cast-iron skillet until
it was browned, then combined all the chicken in the skillet and spread
the stuffing on top.

Then we baked it in a 325 degree Farenheit oven for about an hour-- we
might have used a 350 degree oven instead but we were baking bread at the
time as well.

It came out very good, the spice tastes penetrated through to the chicken
and the stuffing was yummy. We didn't bother with the serving suggestion
but just took it out with a pie server.

However, a little of the stuffing went a long way, so I suspect that next
time I will use crumbs of good, not fluffy-white, bread, and make the
stuffing less moist so it isn't as dense.

We decided that for 40=60 people we will probably only need about one
container of chicken livers to make this... it could have used more
cilantro but I think I like it this way.

My biggest concern is seeing if it can be baked in a covered electric
roaster, as this version was baked uncovered.

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
 "in verbis et in herbis, et in lapidibus sunt virtutes"
(In words, and in plants, and in stones, there is power.)