Stuffed Zucchini/Courgettes Simmered in Yogurt Sauce

Cooking with milk and yogurt is an ancient Mesopotamian way of enhancing the flavors of cooked dishes, as shown in the Babylonian recipes. In the thirteenth-century Baghdadi cookbook, a whole chapter is given to dishes cooked with yogurt and milk. Labaniyya, for instance, is composed of cut-up meat cooked with chopped onion and leeks to which are added eggplants/aubergines, coriander, cumin, mastic, cinnamon, and some sprigs of mint. Then yogurt and ground garlic are added, with a sp