Jannaniyya

Jannaniyya (Lady Ellie's version)

can be found at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Misc9recipes.pdf

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 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, the 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 dough and eggs.

I made the summer/fall version with a few tweaks. “Saltwort” is one of a number of
seaside succulent plants, not available in our area. I used spinach from the spring version.
(as near as I can tell, if I were doing it in summer, purslane might be a reasonable
substitute for saltwort) I left out eggplants since I am sensitive to them. “Eyes” of fennel
was a poser, but I thought the bulb was the likeliest. Since gourd was listed twice I used
twice as much of it as the other things, both zucchini and yellow squash. “Fox grapes” are
the family of grapes that includes Concord, as opposed to wine grapes like Pinot. The
ribbed cucumber is the English type. Dissolved sourdough sounded disgusting and I
wanted to try a gluten-free version anyway, so I stirred in rice flour. Even that hardly
seemed necessary.

1 cup chopped spinach
1 cup chopped chard
½ cup chopped bulb fennel
2 cups chopped zucchini and yellow summer squash
½ cup table grapes, cut in half
1 cup peeled, diced English cucumber (I would have used both types but my slicing
cucumber was rotten)

Parboil all this in salted water and drain.
Puree 1 cup chopped onion and 5 cloves garlic with ½ cup water. Add to a skillet with 2
Tbsp. olive oil. Stir in ½ tsp. each pepper, coriander, and caraway (I also added cumin by
mistake. It was still good). Sauté for 10 minutes, stir in the drained vegetables, with ½ tsp
each crushed dry mint and cilantro, or 1 tsp. each fresh, mashed to a pulp. Cook and stir a
few more minutes.
Turn into a baking dish and crack 4 eggs over the top. Bake at 325 degrees until the eggs
are fully set.