Rummāniyya (Pomegranate Meat Stew)
Origin: Baghdad, Iraq
Source: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Baghdādī, 1226
History
Rummāniyya (رمّانية), literally ‘pomegranatey,’ takes its name from rummān, the pomegranate, whose tart juice sours the pot. It belongs to the broad medieval family of fruit-soured stews marked by the Arabic ‘-iyya’ suffix; pomegranate-soured dishes were grouped as rummāniyyāt (or narbajāt). This sweet-and-sour style is a Persian and Sasanian inheritance taken up at the Abbasid court, where many fruits and vegetables were used to sharpen stews. Nawal Nasrallah calls the type ‘a well-established way of cooking in the medieval Muslim world,’ documented from at least the tenth century. Al-Baghdadi's 1226 recipe is thus a late witness, not the dish's origin; a close relative recurs in the anonymous fourteenth-century Egyptian Kanz al-Fawāʾid. His version simmers fatty meat — optionally with a jointed chicken — among eggplant, gourd and onion (all period-correct; no New-World foods), seasoned with coriander, cumin, cinnamon, pepper, mastic and mint, then finished with hand-pressed sour-pomegranate juice and a little pounded garlic. Nasrallah records kindred versions thickened with crushed nuts, so the family varied. The dish also traveled west: soured ‘romania’ stews appear in European cookbooks between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and in the medicinal Tacuinum Sanitatis derived from Ibn Buṭlān.
Ingredients
- fatty meat
- seasoned salt
- eggplant
- onion
- gourd
- coriander
- cumin
- cinnamon
- pepper
- mastic
- mint
- sour pomegranate
- garlic
- chicken
Instructions
- Cut fatty meat into medium pieces, put in the pot with a little seasoned salt, cover with water, and skim the froth well.
- Peel and prepare eggplant (split crosswise), onion (split), and gourd (seeded, in strips); parboil halfway and add to the pot.
- Add coriander, cumin, cinnamon, pepper, mastic, and mint sprigs; cook well.
- Press and strain sour pomegranate and add; crumble dried mint on top and add a little pounded garlic.
- Optionally add a jointed chicken; leave over gentle fire an hour and remove.