Bread-based main dish (tharīd)
Tharīd with lamb and murrī
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A spiced lamb broth poured over torn bread, which soaks it up and becomes tender. The fermented murrī gives it a salty, almost umami roundness, and saffron a golden color.
Why this dish? Tharīd — stale bread soaked in meat broth — was the most ordinary and beloved dish of the medieval Islamic world, eaten daily from Córdoba to Baghdad. Averroes, a man of moderation and the son of a line of judges, shared at his table this simple dish where wheat bread, the staple of all Andalusian food, took the leading role.
Know, friend reader, that of all dishes, tharīd was the one my household preferred, for it nourishes the body without weighing it down, and reason approves it as much as the palate. We would break the day-old wheat bread at the bottom of the dish, then pour over it the lamb broth in which coriander, cumin, and a spoonful of murrī had simmered; the bread drank the juice until it became tender as flesh. Take it hot, moderately, as the just temperance of humors requires — for health, like thought, is born of balance.
Ingredients
- •Lamb shoulder — a good piece (base meat)
- •Day-old wheat bread — several flatbreads (soaking base)
- •Murrī (fermented condiment) — one spoonful (salty-fermented depth)
- •Fresh coriander and coriander seeds — a handful (aroma)
- •Cumin — a pinch (spice)
- •Saffron — a few threads (color and aroma)
- •Olive oil — a drizzle (fat)
- •Onion — one (broth base)
How it was made : Tharīd was so esteemed that a famous hadith places it above other dishes. In Al-Andalus, it was prepared with murrī, a fermented condiment of barley and salt ubiquitous in kitchens, whose function recalls our modern fermented sauces. It was eaten with the right hand, pinching the soaked bread.
Sources : Kitāb al-ṭabīkh fī al-Maghrib wa al-Andalus (anonymous Almohad collection, 13th c.) · Lucie Bolens, La cuisine andalouse, un art de vivre (11th–13th centuries)