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Black-Barida-art - 8/5/18

"Black Barida (Chicken in Raisin Sauce)" by Mistress Leoba of Lecelade. A cold chicken dish that makes a good Appetizer or snack.

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Black Barida (Chicken in Raisin Sauce)

by Mistress Leoba of Lecelade

Pound black raisins very well. Stir and mash it with a small amount of vinegar. Strain the liquid and add a small amount of cassia, galangal as needed, and a little ginger. Pour over it some olive oil and add a small amount of chopped rue. Pour sauce over [roasted] pullets.

Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, Kitab al’Tabikh Chapter XXXI (The Book of Dishes, trans. Nawal Nasrallah)

Baridas are cold dishes served at the start of the feast, after fresh fruit was served (Zouali, 2007, 56). They are generally composed of light foods – fish, chicken or vegetables, though there is an occasional recipe for red meat (Zouali, 2007, 63). It was believed the stomach took a while to “warm up,” and putting heavy food into an unwarmed stomach would cause indigestion (Zouali, 2007, 64).

Ingredients

1 roasted chicken, or 1.5kg roasted chicken pieces

375g raisins

2 tsp powdered ginger

80mL wine vinegar

3 tbs olive oil

1 tsp cassia or cinnamon

2 tbs finely chopped feverfew

1/2 tsp powdered galangal

1 tsp salt (optional)

Method

1. To make the sauce, grind the raisins and vinegar to a pulp in a mortar and pestle, or pulverize in a food processor.

2. If the sauce is too dry, add more vinegar.

3. Pass the mix through a sieve, add the rest of the ingredients and stir well.

4. Combine the sauce and the chicken and serve cold.

Notes

· I have followed Nasrallah’s lead in using roast chicken with this dish (Nasrallah, 2009, 167) – most chicken barida recipes in the same book specify roast chicken. However, it also works well with sliced poached chicken breast.

· When using roast chicken in feasts, I like to use chicken wings chopped in half and roasted. They don’t take long to cook, and are very easy to portion (and they’re cheap!).

· Cassia and cinnamon are spices obtained from the bark of related trees, and are often both identified simply as cinnamon. When powdered, cassia has a stronger smell, and is reddish in colour. You will probably need to go to a specialised spice store to find them differentiated (Hemphill, 2006, 156-163).

· If using ginger, try to track down whole dried ginger which has to be grated before use. This is the way ginger would have been purchased in the medieval period, and it has a far more powerful flavour and scent.

· I have replaced the rue with feverfew. It has a regrettable tendency to cause allergic reactions (and miscarriages), plus is very bitter. If you can’t find feverfew, you could also use rocket (arugula), in greater quantities. Both feverfew and rocket are also bitter, without the severe allergen problems.

· I recommend using powdered galangal rather than fresh – fresh galangal can be tough, so it’s difficult to peel and cut.

Black Barida

Further Reading

Hemphill, Ian (2006) Spice Notes and Recipes

Nasrallah, Nawal (2009) Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens

Zaouali, Lilia (2007). Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World.

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Copyright 2018 by Christine Lawrie. <clawrie1 at bigpond.net.au>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.