[Sca-cooks] catching drippings

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Kiri commented:
>I don't know if it has any bearing on this, but there are a number of
>recipes in the mid-Eastern books that call for something being baked
>under a piece of meat hung above it so that the fat from the meat can
>drip down into the item being baked.

and Stefan replied:
>Interesting. Can you give some examples of these Middle Eastern
>recipes? Are the foods put under the meats breads or vegetables or
>different items? Also, are these items being baked in an oven? Or
>actually roasted, such as on spits near the fire? Since the dripping
>are recognized now for the flavor they bring now, and I suppose
>then, I can see that capturing and using these drippings would
>often be done.

This style of cooking is called Jawadhib (the "dh" is pronounced as a 
voiced "th" in English, as in "the" or "then") and they appear to be 
Persian in origin. The recipes are in the Book of the Description of 
Familiar Foods - Kitab wasf al-At'ima al-Mu'tada, and in another book 
called Kitab al-Wusla ila al-Habib, both translated into English and 
with notes by Charles Perry published in "Medieval Arab Cookery". 
Perry called them "Yorkshire Puddings" - HIS quotes, since they are 
obviously not really Yorkshire puddings, but bear a vague resemblance.

They are cooked in a tannur (where the word tandour comes from), a 
particular kind of oven. The sweet concoction is usually between two 
layers of flat bread on a baking tray that is placed at the bottom of 
the oven. Then chickens are hung over the tray and roasted so that 
their "drippings" fall on the tray of sweets...

Here's one recipe:
"Jawadhib al-Mauz [banana judhabs]. Take strong yellow bananas, peel 
them and dip them in samid flour dough kneaded like pancake batter. 
Then take them up and fry them in sesame oil on a quiet fire. Throw 
them  in syrup, take them up and throw them in pounded sugar. Then 
arrange them in a try, with thin flatbread over and under them, and 
hang a fat chicken over it."
--- The Book of the Description of Familiar Foods, in Medieval Arab 
Cookery, p. 411

As the chickens roast, the drippings permeate the flat breads and bananas.

Other jawadhib use "Samarkand melons" cooked the same as the bananas; 
bread soaked in milk then put on the tray under the cooking meat and 
served with syrup and/or sugar; qata'if (a kind of thin 
pancakes/crepes) layered with sugar and ground almonds then under the 
chickens; another kind of qata'if with rosewater, almonds and 
pistachios, syrup and sesame oil; another with a mixture of poppy 
seeds, sugar syrup, samid flour, pistachios, saffron between two flat 
breads, then the whole thing under the chickens; another made like 
the poppy seeds, but with almonds; another with dried dates, bread 
crums, honey, saffron, and sesame oil... (pp. 411-412)

There are similar recipes in al-Wusla ila al-Habib on pp. 451-452, in 
"Medieval Arab Cookery".

Anahita