Zīrbāj with Quince -- a Medieval Chicken Stew

I was out driving one day and passed a farm stand selling, among many other things, quinces and pumpkins.  The pumpkins were an edible variety, so I purchased one to make another batch of the Pumpkin Tian.  (Click here for the post.  This time I included zucchini, onions, and corn.  It, too, was good.)

I knew I wanted to do something with quinces, but I really didn't want to make candied quince, quince paste, or any other "usual" recipe involving quinces and great quantities of sugar.

This book, Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World by Lilia Zaouali, offered up an intriguing choice:  a meat and fruit stew that included quinces, apples, and jujubes.  I happened to have all three available, and I chose chicken as my meat.

ISBN 978-0-520-26174-7

The recipe is on page 80; it is number 19 in the Sweet-and-Sour Dishes chapter.

Zīrbāj with Quince

Take some cooked meat, add some coarsely crushed chickpeas, and cook [some more]; then add the broth of the meat, vinegar, honey or sugar, some saffron, some quinces [cut] into pieces, and some new apples, also cut into pieces.  If you like, [put in] some peeled almonds and some jujubes, or else pistachios and mint.  Let thicken over fire and serve.

Another version:  follow the same procedure, with a little starch to thicken [the sauce]; the color remains yellow.

My Redaction

1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs, skinned

1/3 cup dried garbanzo beans

3 quinces

2 apples

12 dried jujubes

1/2 cup chopped almonds

3 tablespoons honey

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon saffron

Since the recipe called for cooked meat to start, I put the chicken thighs in water (about 1/2 way up the sides) and simmered them for 20 minutes.  The pan was covered.

In the meantime, I needed to crush the garbanzo beans.  My first thought was to use a mortar and pestle, but that resulted in beans flying all over the kitchen.  (!)  So I turned to my coffee grinder that is not allowed to touch coffee beans, and it did a good job.

Before

After

The recipe didn't specify if the beans were to be dried or cooked, so after I ground them, I soaked them in 1/2 cup hot water while the chicken was cooking.  

When the chicken was done, I deboned it.

I changed the procedure a little at this point.  I was concerned about cooking the beans with just the meat -- it didn't seem like enough water for them.  So I mixed the beans and their water with the deboned meat and its water, simmering for another 10 minutes, covered.

While this was cooking, I cut the quinces and apples into bite-sized pieces.  They went into a bigger pan.  Then I added the chicken/bean mix along with the jujubes, almonds, saffron, honey, and vinegar.

After mixing them well, I thought the liquid level was too low, so I added a little bit more water.

I set the fire to very low and simmered the mixture for 45 minutes covered and another 45 minutes uncovered.

At this point it was thick, the fruit was soft, and I thought it was ready to go.

The Verdict

My guest taster and I had just the stew for dinner.

Garnished with chopped almonds

We liked the flavor:  meaty and fruity, savory and sweet.  The jujubes added an element of bitter (warn your table guests about the seeds!), the quinces were a little sour, the nuts added a needed crunch.  I liked the saffron, honey, vinegar mix but wished it had more of a sweet and sour bite to it.  I think perhaps another vinegar, like apple cider or red wine, would have been better for this.  

Usually you mix the honey and vinegar in a 1-to-1 combination to get a good sweet and sour effect, but I put in more balsamic than honey.  I think that was right.  Even more vinegar would have been fine.

My only complaint was that the chicken was overcooked.  My guest taster did not agree.  I wanted the meat to be firmer.  If I did this again, I would not pre-cook the chicken, knowing that it had plenty of time to get cooked during the last phase.  I would start with chunks of chicken meat, already deboned.

Also, I would consider cooking the entire mixture only 45 minutes total with the lid off.  

I used an entire tablespoon of saffron but the stew did not turn out yellow.  Should I have used more?  I really can't say.

The leftover stew reheated nicely for lunch the next day.

Success!

Medieval Style Baba Ghannouj

My eggplant plant, a variety called "Patio Baby", is a very persistent plant in my garden.  I bought it accidentally (I was aiming for one that produced regular-sized eggplants; this one produces tiny ones) because apparently I did not look at the tag after picking it up, believing it was one of the big ones next to it.  

It is persistent because even after the squirrels ate it down to the nubs, it grew back with gusto.  Even though my watering system failed it a few times (don't ask), it kept growing.  Now that it gets watered regularly, it is spreading and producing many tiny (2 to 3 inch long on average) purple eggplants.  

At first I thought I would be annoyed at having tiny eggplants but it turns out I like them.  It makes it easier to adjust the quantity of eggplant for my recipes without having a partial eggplant in the fridge.

The other day I checked on it and found an abundance of little ones ready to harvest.  What to do with them?

I have wanted to make baba ghannouj for a long time as everything I have ever read about it made it sound wonderful.  I checked my books and found three recipes, two which are modern and one that is from the medieval Islamic world.  The difference between them is that the modern recipes all call for the eggplants to be cooked over fire or under a broiler, which cooks them and also is supposed to impart a smoky flavor to the recipe.

The medieval recipe does not call for that, and this intrigued me.  Instead it calls for the eggplant to be slow cooked with onion (this is also different from modern recipes).  It does not call for tahini, either.  This, of course, means that I had to give it a try!

The recipe is from Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World, by Lilia Zaouali.

ISBN 978-0-520-26174-7

I have written about one of her recipes before, a Lemon Chicken Stew from North Africa.  Click here to view it.

This version of baba ghannouj is found on page 66, in the Cold Appetizers section, and it is recipe #8.

Puree of Eggplant with Yogurt

Cut the eggplant into small pieces; put them in a jar for cooking [dast] together with whole cleaned onions.  Add some sesame oil and oil of a good quality and a little water.  Reduce over a slow fire.  When the ingredients are cooked, put them through a sieve and combine with a very small clove of garlic, yogurt, and chopped parsley.

Itty bitty eggplants, fresh from my garden!

My Redaction

2 pounds, 4 ounces of small eggplants, weighed before trimming

12 ounce onion (one whole)

1 - 2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 - 1 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

2 ounces water

6 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt

1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic

about 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley

1/2 teaspoon salt

My Notes

I removed the tops of the eggplants and cut them into small pieces.  I kept the onion whole as directed, although I suspected that the medieval onions were smaller, so I was a little doubtful of my decision.

Once all the eggplant pieces were in the Dutch oven, I poured the olive oil over them, then the sesame oil.  They were stirred so the oil coated the pieces and the bottom of the pan.  I put the onion in the middle and added the water.

Uncooked.

At first I had the fire underneath up high, until I heard it was hot enough to start cooking the ingredients.  Then I turned it down to low and put the lid on.  

After two hours it seemed like the eggplants were cooked but the onion was not.  I noticed the bottom of it, the part in the liquid, was cooked but the top still needed time, so I turned it over.  It cooked for another 30 minutes, for a total of 2 1/2 hours.

Done.

I let it cool, then tasted the liquid.  It was very bitter, so I drained it from the vegetables.

Then I used a metal mesh sieve placed in a bowl to hold the vegetables, and the back of a ladle to push them through the sieve.  I did this in batches, putting the pressed skins/seeds into a trash bowl and the resulting puree into another bowl.  I sieved the onion separately from the eggplant pieces because I wasn't sure it would work at all.

Once I had all the puree, I tasted it.  It was still bitter, so I crossed my fingers and mixed in the garlic, 1 tablespoon yogurt, and the parsley, mixing it well with a fork.  I wished I had thought to crush the garlic into a paste first.

This was better but still bitter.  So I crossed my fingers and added another tablespoon of yogurt.  This was better -- I was starting to taste the inherent sweetness of the eggplant.  That meant I put in another tablespoon of yogurt, and then it seemed pretty good.  Very mildly bitter; nothing bad.  However, I felt strongly that the flavors needed more time to blend, so I added another dose of yogurt and popped the whole thing in a covered container in the refrigerator and left it overnight.

Needs more time to blend.

The Verdict

We tried it with some toasted pita chips.  My guest taster said the bitter was gone, but I thought it was still bitter and I did not like it.

He also said it wasn't exciting or interesting.  If he tried this dip at a party, he would not go back to have more.

I decided I needed to play with it.  More yogurt could remove the bitterness that I could taste -- and I never would have guessed it could do that!  Perhaps more sesame oil to make the flavor more interesting, or more garlic (this time made into a paste first).  And maybe salt!

So I added two more tablespoons yogurt (for a total of 6) and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Suddenly it tasted better, and my guest taster included it as a side condiment with his dinner one evening.  I liked it more, too.  The salt made the flavor much more interesting and the extra yogurt lowered the bitter level to where I liked it.  

I still think I should add some more toasted sesame oil.  I think that would add some depth of flavor, perhaps umami, to make the whole experience more complex.

When I considered the whole process, I realized that I could have debittered the eggplant before cooking.  If, after cutting it into pieces, I had sprinkled it with salt and let it stand for an hour or so, then drained it, that might have taken care of the problem.  Rinsing off a lot of the salt would be a good idea, too.

It might be worth doing again, and playing with the quantities to get a better overall flavor.  It certainly was easy, with the hardest part being pressing everything through the sieve.  I declare it a success, but only a mild one.