13th Century Syrian Chicken with Mustard "Jurjaniyyah"

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!



Today, I'll be taking a look at another recipe from 13th century Syria - and the anonymously written Scents and Flavours Arabic cookbook - the creamy chicken Jurjaniyyah!

The name Jurjaniyyah is derived from an Iranian region - Gorgan - which suggests that this was an imported culinary style, rather than a local recipe! Either way, it's a fairly simple and tasty dish!

In any case, lets now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!


Ingredients (Serves 4)

500g yoghurt
1/2 tablespoon flour dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1/2 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
ground cumin
250g chicken thighs (or cut of your choice)


Method

1 - Bake the Chicken

To begin with, we need to cook our chicken. To do this, season a few thighs of chicken with salt, pepper, and freshly-ground cumin. I'm cooking the meat separately to the sauce, which is unusual for meat-based recipes in this time period - but this is seemingly how the dish was intended to be prepared! 

In any case, bake or roast your chicken at 200C for about 30 minutes, or until it's cooked through!

When it's cooked, take it out of the oven and let it rest while you make your sauce.


2 - Make the Sauce 

Next, we need to make our sauce. Start by placing 500g of Greek yoghurt into a saucepan. Into this, toss a slurry of 1 tbsp flour and 1tbsp water - this will help prevent the sauce curdling as it cooks. Place this over a high heat, and stir it. Contemporary Arabic cookbooks emphasise that you should stir this in a single direction, to reduce the risk of curdling. So stir it until you start to see bubbles forming at the edge.

At this point, turn the heat down to medium, and let it foam up and froth away for about 10 minutes.


3 - Assemble Dish

After 10 minutes, pour in a tablespoon of honey, and a couple of tablespoons of mustard seeds. The original recipe describes the dish as being very pungent, so you can adjust this by increasing or decreasing the amount of seeds you add here! 

Place your chicken on a plate, and ladle on some of your sauce. Serve up warm and dig in!


The finished dish is super fragrant, and each mouthful of the sauce has a sharp bite of heat thanks to the mustard seeds. In a sense, it's almost like horseradish! But overall, it's more fragrant than it is hot - and acts very creamy!

Mustard seeds have been cultivated throughout the Near East for millennia, and had a variety of uses besides the culinary field. However the popularity of this seed as an ingredient seems to have increased following the occupation of the region by the Roman Empire - as well as subsequent empires and caliphates.

How and why a Persian recipe was recorded in a Syrian cookbook that charts local, regional tastes could suggest that this dish was popular enough at the time of writing in the region that it felt right at home alongside other dishes (such as my chicken with blackberry sauce)


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