Recipe for Thûmiyya, a Garlicky Dish

Erin's September Chicken Dish, Made September 2013

http://www.medievalcookery.com/search/display.html?anony:61

Recipe for Thûmiyya, a Garlicky Dish

Take a plump hen and take out what is inside it, clean that and leave aside. Then take four ûqiyas of
peeled garlic[19] and pound them until they are like brains, and mix with what comes out of the interior of the chicken. Fry it in enough oil to cover, until the smell of garlic comes out. Mix this with the chicken in a clean pot with salt, pepper, cinnamon, lavender, ginger, cloves, saffron, peeled whole
almonds, both pounded and whole, and a little murri naqî'. Seal the pot with dough, place it in the oven and leave it until it is done. Then take it out and open the pot, pour its contents in a clean dish and an aromatic scent will come forth from it and perfume the area. This chicken was made for the Sayyid Abu al-Hasan[20] and much appreciated.

Thûmiyya Redaction:
1 whole chicken - save liver and heart
6 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon each of :
Salt
Pepper
Lavendar
Fresh ground ginger
Ground cloves
2 tablespoons crushed almonds
2 tablespoons soy sauce (a good substitute for murri with a similar taste)
1/2 cup whole almonds
Preheat oven to 350* F.

Finely mince garlic with chicken liver and heart, mix together to make a fine paste
Fry garlic mixture in enough oil to cover mixture
Mix cooked garlic mixture, salt, pepper, cinnamon, lavender, fresh ground ginger, ground cloves,
ground almonds, whole almonds and soy sauce
Pour sauce into baking dish, place chicken in baking dish, cover and bake for approximately an hour,
until breast meat reaches 165* F
Place chicken into a large clean bowl and pour sauce around chicken.

Note from Lady Esther: I asked for the recipes to be sent to me as soon as possible since I had less than a week between the September Cooks Guild meeting and when we would be displaying all of our work at the Museum Comes to Life. When she sent me this I looked up the recipe and found no redaction. I asked her where she got the redaction from since it had only been the last meeting that I challenged her to do her own redaction and told her to see if she could do it within a year. (A redaction is when a cook takes a medieval recipe which has little to no ingredient amounts, no cooking temperatures or times and figures out all of those things and hopefully records the results so those who need such information can make the recipe.) I had no idea she would do it in less than a month. Although all of the dishes we had this month were delicious this one was so exquisite in both looks and taste that we all agreed that is must be featured in the Middle Eastern feast we will be putting on in January. Not bad for her first redaction!
She left out the saffron after she found it was so expensive and mostly for color, she left out the cloves after finding she was out. She also left out the lavender because she seems to be allergic to it and thought it best not to try eating it, we all agreed it was a wise decision. The dish was so wonderful without these ingredients that they were not missed.
After trying the dish my son loved it and when he found out I had the recipe he wanted me to make it
for dinner that night. I told him I would not be making it for dinner that night, but maybe tomorrow.