Isfīdhabāja (White Stew with Almond Milk and Chicken)

History

Isfīdhabāja belongs to an old Persian dish-family whose name is transparent: the Arabized word derives from Persian sepīdbā — sepīd 'white' plus bā 'soup' — literally a 'white stew'. The white style is defined by its pale character, shunning the strong yellowing spices such as saffron and turmeric. In al-Baghdadi's 1226 Baghdad compilation of favourite dishes, the version is a gentle, un-soured one: meat is softened in rendered tail-fat and simmered with coriander, cumin, pepper, chickpeas and dill, then enriched with almond milk and, if desired, pounded-meat kubab and jointed chicken bound with egg, finished with a dusting of cumin and cinnamon. Crucially it carries no vinegar or other souring agent, making it the mild counterpart to the sharp, sweet-sour sikbāj family with which it shares Persian roots. This gentleness earned the white stew a reputation as food for the frail or the sick — a role echoed in the Italian mangiare in bianco and in the parallel sometimes drawn to European biancomangiare/blancmange, though that lineage is contested rather than settled. Such convalescent framing sits within the broader medieval Baghdadi table, where cookery and Galenic humoral dietetics were closely intertwined. As a Persian-origin dish, isfīdhabāja is one of the older strata al-Baghdadi inherited rather than invented: he is a late (1226) witness to a tradition reaching back through the Abbasid court toward Sasanian Persia.

Ingredients

• meat
• fresh tail-fat
• salt
• dry coriander
• cumin
• pepper
• onion
• handful peeled chickpeas
• dill
• almond milk
• meatballs
• chicken
• eggs
• cinnamon

Instructions

1. Brown medium-cut meat in rendered fresh tail-fat; add salt, coriander, cumin, ground pepper, onion pieces, a handful of peeled chickpeas and dill sticks.
2. Cover with salted water, boil until done, and remove the onion.
3. Thin the pot to taste with almond milk (blanched almonds pressed with water).
4. Optionally add meatballs of pounded spiced meat and a scalded, jointed chicken before the almond milk.
5. Remove the dill, crack whole eggs onto the surface, dust with pounded cumin and cinnamon, wipe the pot, settle on the fire an hour and lift off.