[Sca-cooks] rice cooked in yogurt?

[Sayyeda al-Kaslaania]

How can this work? Soaking the rice in warm water before cooking would 
help, but the yogurt would still scald before the rice cooks. I could 
see adding a cup of the broth back into the pot, but this translation 
clearly says to remove the broth. Thoughts?

Sayyeda al-Kaslaania

39. /Labaniyya R//u-miyya/: Greek (or Byzantine) yogurt stew

  A pound of meat is parboiled to eliminate the stench, until it is 
cooked halfway through; then the chopped leaves of chard are added and 
cooked. When everything is cooked, the meat, the broth, and chard are 
removed from the pot and pound of yogurt and a half /u-qiya/ of rice are 
poured [into the pot] and mixed together so that rice is cooked. At this 
point the meat and chard are added back, together with a small quantity 
of broth, and cooked with mint leaves. After having transferred [the 
contents of the pot] to a plate [/zubdiyya/], the [dish] is sprinkled 
with crushed garlic. This can be prepared with turnips in place of the 
chard.

From: Zaouali, Lilia, and M.B. DeBevoise (trans.). /Medieval Cuisine of 
the Islamic World: A concise history with 174 recipes/.University of 
California Press: Berkley, 2007. The recipe is translated from a 
thirteenth century Syrian text called (in transliterated English) /Kitab 
al-Wusla il//a-al-habi-b fi-wasf al-tayyiba-t wa-l-ti-b/("The Book of 
Relation with the Beloved in the Description of the Best Dishes and 
Spices"). This was translated into Italian and then into English.

During this period, rice was "typically husked white rice (/aruzz abyad 
maqshur/)," according to Mark Nesbitt, et. al. in "History of Rice in 
Western and Central Asia" 
<http://www.ancientgrains.org/rice2010nesbitt.pdf.pdf> (Opens a .pdf.)