Lady Esther's Winter Version of Jannaniyya
I looked at Lady Ellie's summer/fall version but the summer fruits and vegetables were out of seasonand too expensive for me to afford them the middle of January. Plus her redaction left out the cheese
and I wanted cheese. I looked at the spring version redacted by Cariadoc and Elizabeth posted at:
http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~lwittie/sca/food/islamic.html#Jannaniyya Western Islamic 13th c. from Andalusian, The recipe came from Cariadoc's Miscellany. It is originally from al-Andalusi.
"It was the custom among us to make this in the flower and vegetable gardens. If you make it in summer or fall, take saltwort, Swiss chard, gourd, small eggplants, "eyes" of fennel, fox-grapes, the best parts of tender gourd and flesh of ribbed cucumber and smooth cucumber; chop all this very small, as vegetables are chopped, and cook with water and salt; then drain off the water. Take a clean pot and in it pour a little water and a lot of oil, pounded onion, garlic, pepper, coriander seed and caraway; put on a moderate fire and when it has boiled, put in the boiled vegetables. When it has finished cooking, add grated or pounded bread and dissolved [sour] dough, and break over it as many eggs as you are able, and squeeze in the juice of tender coriander and of mint, and leave on the hearthstone until the eggs set. If you make it in spring, then [use] lettuce, fennel, peeled fresh fava beans, spinach, Swiss chard, carrots, fresh cilantro and so on, cook it all and add the spices already indicated, plenty of oil, cheese, dissolved [sour] dough and eggs."
The ingredients here were possible if I used the large size of carrots and onions that are available in
January and used dried beans instead of fresh but I didn't agree with his use of Bok Choy instead of the Swiss Chard that the recipe called for (not everyone likes the taste of chard and I would guess that is why it was substituted.) I don't mind the taste of chard and it doesn't taste anything similar to Bok Choy so since I was able to get Swiss Chard I did. I also felt that using different amounts of the spices would improve the flavor so I did my own redaction.
Lady Esther's Redaction:
Greens:
1.5 oz Spring Mix Salad, chopped
12 oz frozen spinach, chopped (these are just the amounts of greens I had frozen, you can use what ever amounts you like as long as the total is 13 to 14 oz.)
½ a bulb of fennel with fronds, chopped
Veggies:
3 carrots (7.5 oz after chopping)
1 cup dried beans (you can use peeled fava beans, lima beans or other white beans would
work but are not period, or you could substitute garbanzo beans which are period,
if using canned beans use 2 cups.)
1 lb chopped onion, about 1 ½ to 2 large onions
0.6 oz chopped garlic, about 5 large cloves
½ tsp each ground black pepper and ground coriander
1 TBSP whole caraway seeds
1 cup water
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup sourdough*
½ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup fresh mint or 2 TBSP dried mint soaked in 1/3 cup boiling water
As many raw eggs as it takes to cover the vegetables in the pot, I used 7 to 8 extra large
4.5 oz grated cheese
Rinse the beans and soak overnight, if using fava beans the skin should have gotten wrinkled and slip
easily, peel them, the longest I've had to soak fava beans to peel them was 24 hours. In a clean pot place the beans and about twice as much water as beans and ½ tsp kosher salt. Cook until the beans are tender. Drain. If using canned beans just rinse and drain the beans and go to the next step.
Boil 8 to 10 cups of water with 1 to 2 TBSP of kosher salt in a large pot. When the water comes to a
boil add the carrots then the greens and boil for 5 minutes. Drain (you can save the water and use it as a vegetable broth). As a make ahead step you can put the beans, carrots and greens in a zip lock bag and freeze them until needed.
Place the onion and garlic in a food processor and run until between a fine dice and a puree. (Freeze
this mixture as a make ahead option). Mix the dry spices into the onion garlic mixture. Mix the water
and oil with this mixture in a wide bottomed pot and boil until the onions and garlic are cooked (about 10 minutes). Add the defrosted greens and vegetables and cook until hot, about 3 to 5 minutes more.
Puree the chopped cilantro and mint in the blender. Mix the sourdough into the hot vegetables in the
pot and turn the heat down as far as it will go and keep stirring the mixture for a moment. Quickly top
the vegetables with as many raw eggs as will fit, then the grated cheese and the pureed cilantro and
mint. Put the lid on the pot and let it sit until the eggs set (It took mine about 20 minutes in a pot on the stove top but it took about an hour when we tried it later in a slow cooker). The pot took less time but it did nearly burn on the bottom. If you transfer the hot stew into the slow-cooker before topping it with the eggs, cheese and herb puree it may not have that problem.
*To make sourdough put ½ cup of flour (it even worked with rice flour for a gluten free version) into a glass jar. Mix 1 tsp of honey into ½ cup of warm un-chlorinated water until it is dissolved. Mix the
honey-water into the flour with a wooden spoon and cover the jar with a cloth. Stir once a day until
bubbles form, keep stirring it a couple more days. The instructions I have for making sourdough say 6 days from the time you put the mixture together but I find the wild yeasts we have in this area need to be fed every 3 to 5 days or the sourdough gets bitter. If you would rather you can mix in bread crumbs or a half and half mixture of flour and water instead of using sourdough.
