Judhaba with Apricots and Chicken

Esther's Chicken dish, Judhaba

Judhaba with Apricots and Chicken from Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World

“Take some sweet and mature apricots: detach [the fruit] from the pit. [Mix it with sugar.] In a clean
baking pan...spread out [an already baked] flat bread [and place the mixture of apricots and sugar] on
top. [Cover this with another cooked flat bread.] If you wish to add a bit of saffron, do so and sprinkle
with rose water; then hang an excellent hen over [the dish], may it please God.”

I followed a modern recipe for this dish because it seems it is still popular. There are multiple web
sites and other sources which have this recipe.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/cooking.with.the.caliphs.htm

Judhaab

This favorite dish of medieval Baghdad consisted of a sweet pudding which was set at the bottom of a
tandoor oven to catch the juices of roasting meat, which would be served with the pudding. Here we
have a recipe from the collection of Caliph al-Wathiq (842–847).
1 chicken
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons rosewater
ground saffron
1 pound dried apricots
2 fresh lavashes, Mexican flour tortillas or other flatbreads, 12" in diameter
½ cup sugar
Wash chicken and pat dry. Mix 2 tablespoons rosewater with pinch of saffron and rub on chicken,
inside and out. Set chicken on high rack in 350-degree oven. Put apricots in small saucepan, add water
to cover apricots by ½ inch and stew until softened. Place one lavash in baking pan. Arrange stewed
apricots on top, sprinkle with sugar and ¾ cup rosewater in which pinch of saffron has been dissolved,
then cover with remaining lavash. When juices begin running from chicken, set baking pan under it to
catch juices. When chicken is done, serve on apricot pudding. Serves four.

This recipe I found online is from the same authors of Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World so I
figure they redacted it unless it is still in use today.

My husband told me we still had some saffron in the spice cupboard but in searching through both
cabinets I found we didn't. Since according to the original recipe it was optional I left it out. The taste
wasn't missed but the extra color might have been interesting. It seemed that this redaction had too
much rosewater and remembering how it was so overpowering in some of our April recipes and that
when you get too much it tastes like detergent I only used 1 to 1 ½ Tablespoons rubbed into the chicken and a ¼ cup mixed in with the sugar and apricots. It had a heavy rose scent when it started cooking but when we finally ate it the rose flavor was strong but was not overpowering. It seems it was a perfect balance. I think it was in the oven for about an hour before I put the pudding part (flat bread with apricot filling) under it to catch the chicken drippings. I had been cooking it on a rack over a large metal bowl so after I moved it over the baking dish with the pudding in it I poured the drippings over the chicken and all. I didn't like the idea of having to clean the oven rack so I used a smaller oven safe baking rack that would be easier to wash. After I put the whole dish back into the oven I let it cook for another 20 to 30 minutes. It was very well cooked, but that is normal for middle eastern dishes because until recent times they ate with their hands and the food had to be well cooked so that it could be easily pulled off with one hand. It would be “fall off the bone” tender. I let it rest for maybe 10 to 15 minutes and then started cutting it up. After mangling it for a while I made the comment that I would not be the one carving meat at a feast (I don't know how to carve meat). Lady Ellie was nice enough to take over and cut it into edible pieces.
I used the recipe for a bread for Tharid called “Recipe for Folded Bread from Ifriqiyya” from

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Misc9recipes.pdf
A Tharid is a flat bread made with water, some kind of oil or fat and semolina. This recipe called for
olive oil but I chose to make ghee (a type of clarified butter that is cooked to the point of toasting and
then strained to remove the solids). I thought the buttery taste would be better for this dish than the
flavor of olive oil. The first time I tried to make the ghee was the night before and it turned out very
dark and smelled a little burnt so I tried a new batch the next morning. It was better but still dark and
with a slightly burnt smell. The next time I need ghee I think I will just buy it. Other than replacing the source of fat I followed the recipe, doubling it which I don't think I needed to do since I ended up with extra. I didn't cook it as long but it still turned out hard. It tasted kind of like a pie crust made with butter but was tough like a thick, crusty pasta. Since a tharid is like a stew that has this type of bread already cooked, crumbled and then put in a steamer placed on top of the stew pot. Then after it is steamed it is placed in the bottom of a serving dish and has the stew ladled over the top so it was kind of a pasta more than a bread. The next time I make this dish I will use a more tender flat bread, one that is not made with such a high content of gluten as semolina.
I chose to get the dried apricots from the Kabul Market because they have a natural dried type of
apricot and not the kind with all the sweeteners and such that most grocery stores have, those are more of a candied fruit. In tasting the results that was a good decision since it was a sweet pudding but not sickeningly sweet like the sweetened apricots would have made it. Even though the bread was still tough even after adding pats of butter over the cooking chicken to add extra moisture and fat to the bread pudding it was good and we will enjoy eating the leftovers.