Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens, Page 372
A recipe for delicious kardhabaj that Abu al-Tayyib, Chamberlan of Mu'nis al-Muzaffar, gave to his master Mu'nis as a gift on a hot summer day:
Choose big and plump pullits, scald them [to remove feathers], clean them, and fumigate them (yubakhkhar) with moistened aloe wood ('ud nay'). Brush them with olive oil and almond oil then submerge them in a mixture of murri (liquid fermented sauce) stirred with rosewater, black pepper, and cassia.
Insert the pullets into the roasting spit and rotate them on the fire until they brown and almost fall off the bones. Put them whole in sauce (sibagh) made by mixing sour juice of unripe grapes, thyme, basil (badharuj), parsley, and a bit of good qualityanjudhan (dried asafetida leaves). Finally crush on them some ice. It is a refreshing summer dish.
I worked this recipe out to be:
worked this recipe out to be:
Make the marinade:
*In a measuring cup mix 1 1/2 cups inexpensive soy sauce (I used Kikkoman) or to make it Gluten Free use Tamari
1 tsp rosewater (I used Alwadi brand)
1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (the common spice called cinnamon in the U.S. is Chinese Cinnamon or Cassia.)
*Soy sauce (murri was made in Mercia, Spain starting in the month of March and taking 3 months to complete the process. They would mix water with barley flour to make lumps of dough, wrap them in palm leaves and leave them in the shade to mold. Then there was scraping, re-wraping, more molding. It was a long, involved process which produced a brown fermented liquid used as a condiment. Murri ceased to be made centuries ago. In the 20th century food writer Charles Perry traveled to Mercia, Spain and followed the medieval procedure to make murri. He wrote that a successful batch tastes kind of like soy sauce.)
1 whole frozen chicken, ( I used a 1.75 lb, free range, organic) defrosted and rinsed. Pat dry and rub with enough olive oil to coat. (I didn't have any almond oil). Place in a gallon sized zip lock bag and pour the marinade in. seal, put in a container and store in the fridge for at least an hour, moving the condense of the bag around so all of the chicken gets marinaded.
The cooking:
Slide the chicken onto a spit and cook it over medium flame till browned and well done. Place the whole chicken into a wide serving bowl or deep platter on top of the sauce. Then add crushed ice on top for a hot/chilled effect.
If you have never spit roasted a chicken the instructions can be found here:
The Sauce:
I had ordered sour grape juice (also called virjuice) online but it didn't arrive in time, so I substituted with lemon juice. Here's where I ordered the sour grape juice:
$6.99 + $5 S&H
Here's the instructions for making it if you have access to unripe grapes:
1 cup + 2 tsp Sour grape juice (virjuice) or 1 cup lemon juice + 1 tsp Merlot + 1 tsp Chardonnay
1 tsp of chopped fresh basil (I used 1/2 tsp dried basil because my attempts to grow it keep running into issues...and squirrels this year.)
1 TBSP stripped thyme leaves
1 TBSP chopped parsley
1 tsp asafetida powder or 1/2 tsp granulated garlic and 1/2 tsp granulated onion
Put the ingredients in a screw-top jar and shake to mix. Pour the sauce in the bottom of the serving dish and place the roast chicken on top.
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