An Extraordinary Stuffed Rabbit

Separate it at the joints, then take the meat from its legs and back, called the lunbâ l (loin), and add the meat of another rabbit and pound it well in a mortar. Add to this onion juice, murri, clove, spices, and all that is put in meatballs. Take the bones and other parts and put them in a pot, pour over them two spoonfuls of vinegar, the like of oil, one spoon of murri, peeled almonds, pine-nuts, citron leaves, fennel stalks, an onion, a clove of peeled garlic, sprigs of thyme, " eyes" of rue, and a dirham's weight of saffron. Cook it with sufficient water until it is done, and then take out everything from the pot. Take the bones of the thighs and the lunbâ l, clothe them with the ground meat, and make meatballs of the rest. Throw all this carefully into the pot. Take two egg yolks, after boiling, and dress them with the meat as well, and throw them into the pot. When all is done and the greater part of the broth has evaporated, crumble crumbs of cold bread and a little flour [p. 16, verso] of fine wheat. Dissolve that with one spoonful of the rest of the stuffing together with eight or ten eggs, and sprinkle on it sufficient salt and spices, and fry the parts removed from the pot until they are browned. Then return them to the pot and fry the meatballs and the eggs covered with meat likewise. Then cover all the contents of the pot with eggs and throw in the rest of the oil that was in the frying pan. Rebuild a moderate fire, and stir [or agitate] from the sides of the pot carefully until the stuffing is done and wrinkled and the broth departs. Then take the parts and arrange them on a dish in which citron leaves have been arranged, and sprinkle the stuffing over it. Then put the rest of the parts in the dish with the rest of the stuffing. Then garnish the dish with the fried meatballs, and split the meat-clad yolks and put among the meatballs and sprinkle the rest of the stuffing between them, with almonds, pine-nuts, and minced cloves of garlic. Cut rue over it, sprinkle it with fine spices, and present it. If you omit the saffron and garlic, add a spoonful of cilantro juice and increase the murri a little, another dish will result.

A Chicken Dish

Slit a chicken's throat, and skin it after inflating, as described before. Then take its breast and entrails and pound them with a quarter pound of almonds, spice it and put in almonds, pine-nuts, pistachios, not pounded, and two spoonfuls of rosewater, and twenty eggs, two spoonfuls of oil, one of murri and cilantro juice. Beat all this and fill the skin with it, insert among the filling boiled eggyolks, sew it up and put it in a pot with seven spoonfuls of oil, after boiling it in boiling water. Then throw it in the oven, after sealing it with dough, and when the top [MS has marginal notation " sic"; probably the skin, rather than the surface, is meant] is browned in it, take the rest of the meat and put it in a pot with half a spoonful of vinegar, as much of murri naqî ', a third of a spoonful of oil, pepper, cinnamon, lavender, Chinese cinnamon, cilantro juice, onion juice, an " eye" of citron [leaves], fennel stalks, and sufficient salt and water. Put it on the fire until it is cooked, and when it is done, cover the contents with an û qiya of pounded almonds, breadcrumbs, flour and four eggs. Make a covering in it with two eggyolks and when this covering has wrinkled, ladle the dish onto a serving plate and garnish it with cut-up eggyolks, and sprinkle it with spices and rue. Put the stuffed skin on another dish and garnish it after cutting it in half...[word partly missing: perhaps " with sausages"? ]... fried and dust with the spices and sprinkle it with rosewater and present it. The stuffing can be made [p. 17, recto] in another manner; that is, pound the breast meat and the stuffing and season it as before, and throw on twenty eggs, without their whites; take a small pot and put cilantro juice in it, boil and remove the foam, and throw the stuffing on it and mix with it. Stuff the skin with this, sew it up, and arrange its cooking; in the second dish of meat is what is done in the first, to the letter.

⇐ Предыдущая45678910111213Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: