Small Birds in Dough

YBC 8958 #1

The usual pottery found in Ubaid graves at the southern Mesopotamian site of Eridu
consisted of an upright jar, a dish or a plate like this one, and a cup lying inside the dish.
They were placed in the corner of mud-brick coffins near the right foot of an
outstretched body. Although the paint designs on Ubaid pottery do vary, this plate conforms
to a general type consisting of two concentric rings close to or at the rim.
Three equally spaced blocks of solid paint between the rings further accentuate the
circumference of the plate. Each block has diagonal parallel lines on either side.

The second tablet has seven recipes which are very detailed. The text is broken in several places and the name of the second recipe is missing, but it is a dish with small birds, maybe partridges:

Remove the head and feet. Open the body and clean the birds, reserving the gizzards and the pluck. Split the gizzards and clean them. Next rinse the birds and flatten them. Prepare a pot and put birds, gizzards and pluck into it before placing it on the fire.

[It does not mention whether fat or water is added -- no doubt the method was so familiar that instructions were considered unnecessary. After the initial boiling or braising, the recipe continues:]

Put the pot back on the fire. Rinse out a pot with fresh water. Place beaten milk into it and place it on the fire. Take the pot (containing the birds) and drain it. Cut off the inedible parts, then salt the rest, and add them to the vessel with the milk, to which you must add some fat. Also add some rue, which has already been stripped and cleaned. When it has come to a boil, add minced leek, garlic, samidu and onion (but not too much onion).

[While the birds cook, preparations for serving the dish must be made]

Rinse crushed grain, then soften it in milk and add to it, as you kneed it, salt, samidu, leeks and garlic along with enough milk and oil so that a soft dough will result which you will expose to the heat of the fire for a moment. Then cut it into two pieces. Take a platter large enough to hold the birds. Place the prepared dough on the bottom of the plate. Be careful that it hangs over the rim of the platter only a little. Place it on top of the oven to cook it. On the dough which has already been seasoned, place the pieces of the birds as well as the gizzards and pluck. Cover it with the bread lid [which has meanwhile been baked] and send it to the table.