Recettes

Kafteji

Kafteji is Tunisian street food built on a single idea: fry a range of vegetables separately so each one is properly cooked, then chop them together and serve the result with bread. Potato, courgette, pepper, tomato and aubergine are the usual cast, and the chopping at the end is what makes it kafteji rather than a plate of fried vegetables. It is sold from small counters and casse-croûte shops across Tunisia and eaten at any hour, most often stuffed into bread as a sandwich. It is inexpensive, which is part of its identity: kafteji is what you eat when you want something substantial and hot without a restaurant. Fried egg is a common addition, and in many Tunisian versions it is the only protein. The version here includes ground beef or lamb, which puts it at one end of a range. Kafteji is frequently made entirely without meat, and the vegetable only preparation is at least as common in Tunisia as the meat version. Harissa, olives and a squeeze of lemon are the usual finishing touches, and the dish is eaten from a shared plate with bread as the utensil.

Tunisia50 minLaila

Moroccan Chicken Rfissa

Rfissa is chicken and lentils stewed with onions in a broth heavy with fenugreek, ras el hanout and saffron, poured over a bed of shredded msemen or trid pastry. The pastry takes up the broth and becomes the base of the dish rather than an accompaniment to it, which is what distinguishes rfissa from a tagine served with bread. It is a family dish above all else. Rfissa is what appears at reunions and at religious occasions, at what Moroccans call a zarda, and it is not a restaurant dish. Its most specific role is at childbirth: it is served to women who have recently given birth, traditionally on the third day, because fenugreek, lentils and the spice blend are held to support recovery and milk production. A dish with a fixed place in a family's most significant week carries a weight that a good stew does not. The bed underneath it has its own vocabulary. Served over crumbled harcha it becomes rfissa medhoussa; over cubed bread it is treda. Moroccan households commonly buy the trid or msemen from a souk or a local bakery rather than making it, because the pastry is the slow part and the stew is not.

Morocco3 hrBlessing

Rishta, Libyan hand cut pasta steamed in a couscoussier and served with lamb and onion sauce

Rishta (Libyan-Style Pasta)

Rishta is Libyan pasta, and the important thing about it is that it is steamed rather than dropped into water. Fresh noodles are cut fine, set in a couscoussier over a sauce, and cooked in the rising steam, which is the same method Libya and the rest of the Maghreb use for couscous. That single decision separates rishta from every Italian pasta it superficially resembles. The sauce beneath is busla, built on a large quantity of onion cut into thin wings, cooked down with chickpeas, cinnamon and cloves. Lamb goes in with tomato paste and a warm spice mix of turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper and chilli. In Tripoli, where the dish is most closely associated, it appears under the names rishdat cascas and rishda imbaukha, meaning steamed rishda. The wider North African context is worth knowing. Dry meat called gedid, salted and sun cured, is used across the region to give dishes a smoky depth, and its use is generally traced to Amazigh practice. Rishta is also easily confused with makaruna imbaukha, another Libyan steamed pasta, which is made with dry angel hair rather than fresh cut noodles. The two look similar on a plate and are made from different things.

LibyaBlessing

Tarb, Egyptian kofta wrapped in lamb caul fat and grilled until golden

Tarb (Grilled Kofta Wrapped in Lamb Fat)

Tarb is kofta wrapped in caul fat and grilled, and the caul is what the dish is named for. Tarb is the Egyptian word for the lacy membrane of fat that surrounds a lamb's stomach, and wrapping seasoned minced lamb in it produces something that ordinary kofta cannot: the fat renders during cooking, bastes the meat from the outside in, and crisps to a golden shell. Its occasion is Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, and the connection is direct rather than customary. Eid al-Adha involves the slaughter of an animal and the distribution of its meat, and caul fat is one of the parts that becomes available when a whole lamb is broken down at home. A dish built on caul is a dish that belongs to the moment when a whole animal is being used, which is why tarb appears then and rarely otherwise. Kofta itself runs across Egypt and the whole Middle East, minced meat with onion, parsley and spices, formed and grilled. Tarb is the version that takes it somewhere richer, and Egyptians treat it as a heavy dish for a family celebration rather than everyday food. It is found in the grilled meat restaurants that specialise in kofta, kebab and grilled chicken across Egypt, served with rice or pasta.

Egypt1 hr 55 minBlessing

Tunisian Couscous

Couscous is the national dish of Tunisia, and it is also the national dish of Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya, which tells you something about how the Maghreb understands itself. The same steamed semolina appears across all five countries under names that shift with the language: kousksi in Tunisia, taam or kesksu in Algeria, seksu in Morocco, and cuscusu in Sicily, where it crossed the water. The Tunisian version is distinguished by its heat and its colour. Harissa goes into the broth rather than being offered alongside it, and the finished couscous runs orange to deep red depending on how much broth and harissa it has taken up. Caraway is the other Tunisian signature, appearing in a quantity that Moroccan and Algerian couscous would not use. What goes with it depends on the coast. In Sfax and the other coastal cities, couscous is made with fish. Inland it more often carries lamb, sometimes with dried fruit. Turnip, carrot, courgette, potato, pumpkin and chickpeas are the usual vegetables, cooked in the broth and removed as each becomes ready. The word itself is traced either to the Arabic kaskasa, to pound small, or the Amazigh seksu, meaning rounded or well rolled, and both derivations describe the grain rather than the dish.

Tunisia2 hrBlessing

Usban

Usban is a North African sausage made from the parts of a sheep that a whole animal butchery yields and nothing else does: the stomach, the liver, the lungs and the heart, chopped and mixed with rice, herbs and spices, sewn into pouches and cooked in a sauce. It is eaten in Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, and it is written both usban and osban. Its occasion is Eid al-Adha, and the connection is structural rather than customary. The festival involves the sacrifice of an animal and the use of all of it, and usban is what the offal becomes. It cannot be made casually because it requires a quantity of organ meat that only arrives when a whole sheep is broken down at home. Tunisian households make it on the day of Eid despite the considerable labour, and the effort is part of what the dish means. The work is real. The stomach must be scrubbed, blanched, scraped of its lining until it turns white, cut and sewn into pouches by hand with a needle and butcher's twine, then filled and sewn shut. Usban is documented in Tunisian references as far back as the 13th century, and it is held up as a demonstration of skill: proof that a cook can use every part of the sacrifice properly. It is served alongside rice or couscous.

Tunisia1 hr 30 minBlessing

Dobara

Dobara is a chickpea and fava bean soup from Biskra in northeastern Algeria, and it is winter food in a place that gets genuinely cold at night despite sitting on the edge of the Sahara. It is also spelled doubara, and it is known widely enough by its region that Algerians call it doubara Biskra. It is vegan by construction rather than by choice. Meat is expensive in Algeria and many households cannot buy it regularly, and dobara is one of the dishes that answers that directly: beans, chickpeas, spices and bread, filling enough that nobody at the table is thinking about what is missing. It is also the dish that gets made when a guest arrives unannounced, because the components are always in the house. The heat is not incidental. Harissa goes in, and so do chilli, black pepper and paprika, and Algerians describe the warmth it produces as the reason to eat it in winter. What makes it distinctive is that the fresh elements go in at the table rather than in the pot: grated tomato, chopped coriander, garlic, pickled peppers, lemon slices and olive oil are added to each bowl as it is served, so the dish is finished by whoever is eating it.

Algeria1 hrBlessing

Meshabek, an Egyptian sweet of piped fried batter soaked in syrup

Egyptian Meshabek

Meshabek is a fried batter sweet, piped into loops through a narrow nozzle, fried until it turns brittle, and dropped straight into cold syrup while still hot. The name translates as twisted, and that is precisely what it looks like: a tangle of thick threads holding syrup in every gap. It is street sweet rather than restaurant sweet, and it is cheap enough that half a kilo costs under a dollar in Egypt. Its documented origin points to Tanta and Damietta in the Nile Delta, from where it spread across the country, and it now turns up at sweet shops and street stalls nationwide. The hot into cold step is the technique and the whole reason it works. Batter fried to brittle and then plunged into cold syrup absorbs it in seconds without going soft, which is what gives meshabek its particular quality of being simultaneously crunchy and soaked. The same principle appears in fried syrup sweets across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. As with most Egyptian home sweets, the recipe moves between families rather than from books, which is why the proportions shift from one household to the next.

EgyptBlessing

Kawaree, an Egyptian dish of calf's feet slow cooked with chickpeas into a rich gelatinous broth

Kawaree (Cow Feet)

Kawaree is Egyptian calf's feet cooked with chickpeas until the meat falls from the bone and the broth turns thick with gelatin. It belongs to the older end of the Egyptian repertoire, and Egyptians are direct about the fact that it appeals more to their parents' generation than to their own. It is served in more than one way, and each has its own name. Kawaree fettah puts it over rice with tomato sauce, in the manner of the wider fattah tradition where bread or rice sits under a rich meat and broth. It is also eaten alongside stuffed vine leaves, and the intended technique there is specific: a piece of kawaree and one vine leaf in the same mouthful, so the gelatinous richness and the sharp stuffed leaf arrive together. The dish belongs to a family that runs across the region. Sudanese kawari uses sheep or cattle hooves with cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. Moroccan hergma is spiced with ginger, paprika and chilli and finished with rice. Turkish fasulyeli paça uses white beans in place of chickpeas and no turmeric at all. All are the same principle handled by different kitchens, and all exist because a foot yields a great deal from almost nothing.

EgyptBlessing

Egyptian Kofta

Kofta is minced meat, seasoned and shaped by hand, and it runs across an enormous stretch of the world: from the Balkans through Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, across the Arabian peninsula, into Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and along the North African coast. The Egyptian version is lamb or beef with onion, parsley, mint and a warm spice mix, moulded onto skewers and grilled. Its written history is old. Recipes appear in the earliest surviving Arab cookbooks, where large ground lamb meatballs were glazed in saffron and egg yolk, a technique that later reached Europe and was known there as gilding or endoring. From the Arab world it travelled east, and nargisi kofta was served at the Mughal court in India. In Egypt, kofta belongs to the grilled meat restaurants that exist in every town, where it is cooked alongside kebab, grilled chicken and tarb and served with rice, bread and salad. The distinction Egyptians draw between kofta and kebab is worth knowing: kebab is cubed meat on a skewer, kofta is minced meat shaped by hand. It is essentially sausage without a casing, and the comparison to a hamburger, sometimes made, misses that it is almost never served in bread.

Egypt1 hrCuisine228

Tunisian Mloukhia

Tunisian mloukhia is not the dish of the same name eaten in Egypt, and the difference is fundamental. Egyptians cook the fresh leaves of jute mallow into a green soup. Tunisians dry the leaves, grind them to a powder, and cook that powder in oil for hours until it turns from green to deep brown and finally to something close to black. The two share a plant and almost nothing else. The name carries a claim. Mloukhia derives from the Arabic malik, meaning king, and in Tunisia the dish is called the delicacy of the king. It is cooked slowly over the low heat of a kanoun, a charcoal brazier, for at least eight hours in the traditional method, and it is not unusual for the paste to be started the evening before and finished the next day. Its occasions are precise and they cross religious lines. Tunisian Muslims eat it on Ras el am, the first day of the Hegira new year, so that the year begins under the sign of green, which is the colour of Islam and of hope. It appears at the end of mourning periods and on the first day of Eid al-Fitr. The Jews of Nabeul kept the same custom and now cook mloukhia for Rosh Hashanah. Tunisians say plainly that there is no middle position on it: you love it or you do not.

Tunisia6 hr 30 minBlessing

Zviti

Zviti is a very hot Algerian dish from Bou Saada in M'Sila province, and it is defined as much by how it is served as by what goes into it. A semolina flatbread called rakhsis is crumbled into a tall wooden mortar, the mehrez, along with grilled peppers, tomatoes, garlic and a large quantity of chilli, and everything is crushed together with a wooden pestle. The mortar then goes to the table. Zviti is not portioned onto plates: everyone gathers around the mehrez and eats directly from it, and in some places it is presented on a special table with a hole cut in the middle to hold the pestle upright. It also goes by the name slata mehrez, which translates as the mortar salad. The heat is the point and Algerians are entirely open about the effect. Eating zviti involves sweating and gasping, and the description of it as a fire dish is affectionate rather than a warning. Some restaurants reduce the chilli or work olive oil and butter through it to soften it, which regulars regard as missing the idea. It is eaten as an accompaniment rather than a course, with a glass of lben, the fermented buttermilk, to cool the mouth between mouthfuls.

Algeria45 minBlessing

Akod

Akod is a tripe dish and it is the emblematic dish of Tunisian Jewish cooking. Beef tripe and a cow's trotter are cleaned, blanched through several changes of water, then cooked for hours with garlic, cumin, tomato paste and harissa until the sauce is thick and the tripe has surrendered completely. Its place is at the kemia, the Tunisian Jewish spread of small dishes that opens a meal, alongside banatages, briks, fricassés and minina. A host laying out a proper kemia would be expected to have made it. Tunisian Jewish cooking developed over centuries in Tunisia and has since largely relocated to France and Israel with the community, which makes recording dishes like this more urgent than recording better travelled ones. The wider family is large and worth knowing. Moroccan douara, also called t'qualia or kercha, uses mutton tripe. Algerian bakbouka includes carrots, courgette and chickpeas. Chkamba in Oran and chmenka in Tunisia are seasoned differently again, and the Moroccan Jewish version, tajine al guezar, meaning the butcher's pot, uses cumin and paprika without tomato paste and is cooked for close to ten hours over coals at Pesach. Offal has fallen out of favour with younger generations across the region, which the source for this recipe notes with some regret.

Tunisia6 hr 30 minBlessing

Swabaa Zainab

Swabaa Zainab means Zainab's fingers, and the name is the dish. Ridged fingers of semolina and flour dough are fried until crisp and dropped into cold sugar syrup, coming out crunchy outside and soft within. Two stories attach to the name and Egyptians tell both. In one, a clever girl invented the sweet and guests praised it by saying teslam sawabe' Zainab, may God bless Zainab's fingers. In the other, it is named for Sayyida Zainab, granddaughter of the Prophet, who is deeply venerated in Egypt and after whom one of Cairo's central districts is named. Neither account can be verified and both are held affectionately. Its occasions are Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr above all, and it appears at popular celebrations through the year. It belongs to the family of Arab syrup sweets that also produces meshabek and basbousa, and it is described as among the oldest of them, mastered by Arab cooks and carried outward from there. Egyptian households share the recipe between families rather than from books, which is why the proportions shift from one kitchen to the next. It is eaten in the morning as readily as in the evening, with tea, coffee or juice.

Egypt45 minBlessing

Garantita

Garantita is a baked chickpea flour flan, sliced and eaten hot in a piece of baguette with cumin and harissa. It is Algerian street food in the most literal sense: sold from carts and small counters, cheap enough to be a default lunch, and eaten standing up. Its names change across the country. Garantita in Algiers, calentica in Oran, and karantita, karen or el hami in the west. In Algiers it also goes by el kebda el beida, the white liver, and it is described without embarrassment as the poor man's sandwich, which is a statement about price rather than quality. The origin story is a good one and should be treated as a story. It is said to come from Spanish soldiers at the fort of Santa Cruz in Oran in the 18th century, who ran out of provisions and had only chickpea flour, water and oil left, and whose cook combined them. The name is then traced to the Spanish caliente, meaning hot. The connection to Spanish chickpea cooking is real, since similar chickpea flour preparations exist across the western Mediterranean, but the specific tale of the soldiers is folklore rather than record. One rule is not negotiable: garantita is eaten hot, never cold.

AlgeriaBlessing

Roz bi laban, an Egyptian rice pudding served in a bowl with cinnamon and chopped almonds

Roz bi Laban (Rice Pudding)

Roz bi laban is rice with milk, which is exactly what the Arabic says, and it is among the most commonly eaten desserts in Egypt. It is sold from dessert shops and traditional restaurants in small individual bowls, set rather than loose, and served cold more often than warm. Its ubiquity comes from its simplicity. Rice, milk, sugar and a thickener are ingredients every household has, and the whole thing can be made in under half an hour if the rice is cooked separately rather than simmered in the milk from the start. That shortcut is common in Egyptian home kitchens and makes the dish close to foolproof, where the traditional method of cooking the rice slowly in milk demands constant stirring in the manner of a risotto. Rice pudding exists across most of the world and the Egyptian version is placed by its details. Cornstarch is used alongside the rice to give a firmer set than European rice puddings have, coconut flakes and raisins go on top, and cinnamon and chopped almonds are the other standard finishes. It sits in the same category as mahalabia and umm ali on the Egyptian dessert table, and is considered relatively light against those.

EgyptBlessing

Mbakbaka, a Libyan one pot pasta stew with lamb, potatoes and North African spices

Mbakbaka (Libyan Pasta Stew)

Mbakbaka, also written imbakbaka, is Libya's one pot pasta stew and it is a direct product of Italian colonisation. Italy occupied Libya from 1911 to 1943, pasta arrived with the occupation, and Libyan cooks absorbed it into a North African spice framework rather than adopting Italian technique alongside it. The result is a pasta dish that no Italian would recognise. Turmeric, ginger, curry powder, chilli and mixed spices go into a tomato base with lamb or beef, and the pasta cooks directly in that liquid rather than being cooked separately and sauced afterwards. Potatoes go in too. Cooking the pasta in the sauce is the defining decision: the starch thickens the liquid and the pasta absorbs the spice, which is what makes it a stew rather than pasta with sauce on it. Macaroni elbows are the traditional shape, and ditalini, gemelli and other small pastas all suit it for the same reason: the tubes and twists hold the sauce. Harissa is a common addition for heat. The comparison people reach for is minestrone, which captures the one pot logic and misses the spicing entirely. It is winter food and family food, and it is eaten across Libya and among the Libyan diaspora.

Libya28 minBlessing

Mhajab, a North African stuffed flatbread folded into layers and cooked on a griddle

Mhajab - A Traditional North African Dish

Mhajab is a stuffed North African flatbread, and the technique is what makes it. A soft dough is stretched out until it is thin enough to see through, folded in from the sides and then from the top and bottom into a square parcel around a filling, and cooked flat on a griddle. The folding creates the layers, and the layers are the dish. It belongs to Algeria and Morocco and is closely related to the Moroccan msemen and rghaif, which use the same stretch and fold method without a filling. Mhajab is street food and it is household food for special occasions, which is a combination that usually indicates something that takes skill but not money. The filling is conventionally a cooked mixture of onion, tomato and pepper, sometimes with meat, and the version here uses beef with potato and carrot. Vegetable fillings are as common as meat ones. It is eaten on its own, or served alongside couscous, harira and salads with mint tea. Cooked on a griddle it comes out crisp outside and soft within; baked it is softer throughout and takes longer, which is the trade the source lays out honestly.

Algeria50 minDebby

Mtewem

Mtewem is an Algerian dish of meatballs and meat cooked together with chickpeas in a garlic heavy sauce, and the name says exactly what it is. Mthawem derives from the Arabic for garlic, and the quantity used is the point rather than an aromatic detail. It belongs to Algiers, where the original preparation is made with a white sauce, and it appears at the occasions that matter: Ramadan evenings, weddings and celebrations. Most families now make it with a red tomato based sauce, which has become the more common version, and cooks disagree about which is correct in the way that families always do about a dish attached to celebration. Cumin carries it alongside the garlic. The meatballs are formed small, about the size of a walnut, and are added to the sauce only after the meat and chickpeas have already cooked, so they poach gently rather than breaking up. Some households press a blanched almond into the centre of each one, a touch that belongs to the wider North African habit of hiding something in a dish for the person who finds it. Cinnamon divides opinion and is entirely optional.

Algeria1 hr 30 minBlessing

Mhadjeb

Mhadjeb, also written mhajeb, mahjouba or m'hadjeb depending on the region and the transliteration, is an Algerian stuffed flatbread built from semolina dough stretched until it is almost translucent, folded around a cooked filling of onion, tomato and pepper, then griddled flat. It belongs to street food and to Ramadan. Through the fasting month it appears on stalls across Algerian towns in the hour before sunset, stacked and sold by the piece, and it is one of the dishes most associated with the table at iftar. Outside Ramadan it is everyday food, made in quantity at home and eaten warm. The name carries a story that Algerians tell about its origin. Mahjouba was said to be a woman who did not leave her house, and in Algerian usage the word carries both meanings at once, the secluded woman and the honourable one. She made these breads and sent them out with her children to sell in the market. The dish took her name and kept it. What makes it technically distinctive is the stretching. The dough is worked with oil rather than flour, then pulled out by hand on an oiled surface until it is thin enough to read through, which is what gives the finished bread its layered, papery texture against a soft, well-cooked filling.

AlgeriaNympha

Aslooz, a Libyan steamed couscous dish with asparagus, dill and a spiced tomato sauce

Aslooz (Libyan Couscous-Based Dish)

Aslooz is a Libyan couscous dish named after a plant, and the plant is the reason it belongs to a season rather than to a calendar. Aslooz is a wild weed that grows across the countryside and the mountain regions of western Libya, gathered rather than farmed, and harvested in a narrow window through January and February. It is picked from roadsides and hillsides in the Nafusa mountains and the western districts, and only the tender twigs and flowering branches are used. Because it grows wild and its season is short, aslooz has never been a commercial crop, and it is effectively unavailable outside Libya. Libyan families abroad substitute, most often asparagus with dill, sometimes carrot with cumin leaves, and this recipe is written that way. Everything about it is plain: steamed couscous, a tomato base, a wild green and a carrot sauce sharpened with lemon and chilli. Libyans describe it as cheap and cheerful and treat it as a family dish, made and eaten together rather than served to guests. The couscous is steamed over the greens so it takes their flavour from below, which is the technique that separates it from a couscous simply mixed with vegetables, and it is what a Libyan cook would notice first if it were skipped.

Libya1 hrBlessing

Chekhchoukha

Chekhchoukha, also written chakhchoukha, is torn flatbread under a spiced meat and chickpea sauce, and the name describes the tearing. It comes from tacherchert in the Chaouia language, meaning to crumble or to tear into small pieces, and the bread is broken by hand rather than cut. It is a Chaoui dish, from the Aurès mountains of eastern Algeria, and it spread from there into Constantine, Biskra and the rest of the country. Its origin is in shepherds' food, the substantial thing eaten on returning home on cold winter nights, and it kept that character even as it became a dish for festive occasions and celebrations rather than everyday eating. The bread is rougag, also called trid, a very thin round flatbread made from fine semolina. It is torn, steamed briefly to soften, then heaped on a plate and covered with marqa, the sauce of diced lamb, tomato, onion and chickpeas spiced with dried red chilli, caraway, ras el hanout, black pepper and cumin. Two versions are recognised: chakhchoukha of Biskra, which is this one, and chakhchoukha dfar, which uses a different flatbread and differs in taste and thickness. Which pot it is made in also varies, with some cities using clay and others iron.

Algeria1 hr 10 minBlessing

Tanjia Marrakchia

Tanjia Marrakchia belongs to Marrakech specifically, and it is named after the pot rather than the food. The tanjia is a tall, narrow clay urn with a small neck, and the dish cannot properly be separated from it: meat, spices and a little water go in, the neck is sealed with parchment and clay, and the whole vessel is buried in the embers of a hammam furnace to cook for hours. That cooking method is the reason it exists. The hammam, the public bathhouse, kept a wood fire burning to heat its water, and the ashes were free heat available to anyone who brought a pot. Labourers and workers would leave a tanjia with the furnace attendant in the morning and collect it cooked at the end of the day, which made it food for men working away from a kitchen. It is still called the bachelor's dish in Marrakech for that reason, though it now appears at celebrations, religious occasions and family gatherings as well. Beef or lamb is standard, with cumin, ginger, saffron, turmeric and paprika, and preserved lemon and olives in some households. Without a hammam the substitute is a very low oven over several hours, which gets the tenderness but not the smoke.

Morocco5 hr 20 minDebby

Tunisian Makrouna

Makrouna is Tunisian pasta, and calling it that undersells how thoroughly Tunisia has made pasta its own. Tunisians are among the heaviest pasta eaters in the world, second only to Italy by consumption per head, and makrouna is the everyday expression of that, a dish cooked in most households, taught mother to daughter, and served at Sunday tables. The Italian connection is real and close. Tunisia sits directly across the Mediterranean from Sicily, and the two coasts have exchanged food, people and language for centuries. But what Tunisia did with pasta is not an imitation of an Italian sauce. Makrouna is built on tomato paste cooked down hard in oil until it darkens, and on harissa, the fermented chilli paste that is Tunisia's defining condiment. The result is deeper, redder and considerably hotter than an Italian tomato sauce. Spicing follows the Tunisian rather than the Italian pattern: tabil, caraway, coriander seed, sometimes cinnamon in the versions cooked with lamb. The pasta itself is usually a tubular shape that holds sauce, and it is finished in the sauce rather than dressed with it, so it takes on colour and heat all the way through. Meat varies by household and occasion, lamb, beef, merguez or chicken, and the dish is often built around whatever the week allows.

TunisiaBlessing

Kanafeh

Kanafeh, konafa in Egypt, knafeh across the Levant, is a pastry built from kadaif, the fine shredded dough sometimes called angel hair, layered with cheese or cream, baked in ghee until the strands turn deep gold, and soaked in sugar syrup while still hot. Its origins are Levantine rather than African. The most commonly cited account places its invention in Damascus in the seventh century, and an early version appears in Kitab al-Tabikh, a thirteenth-century Andalusian cookery manuscript. From there it spread across the Ottoman world. In Egypt it has become genuinely Egyptian. Konafa is inseparable from Ramadan, sold by weight from bakery windows through the whole month, made at home in large trays, and eaten after iftar alongside qatayef. Egyptian versions lean towards cream, nuts and dried fruit as often as cheese, which distinguishes them from the Palestinian knafeh nabulsieh built on stretchy akkawi cheese and stained orange. The texture is the point of the dish, and it depends on a single rule: the syrup and the pastry must be at opposite temperatures. Hot syrup on hot pastry makes it soggy. Cool syrup poured over pastry straight from the oven keeps the strands crisp while the inside stays molten. Rose or orange blossom water in the syrup is standard, and crushed pistachio or walnut goes on top.

EgyptDeborah

Rachta

Rachta, also written rechta, is an Algerian dish of flat handmade noodles served under a pale, cinnamon-scented sauce, and it is celebration food rather than everyday cooking. The noodles are made from flour, salt, water and ghee, rolled and cut into flat ribbons, then steamed rather than boiled. Steaming is what gives them their particular texture, and it is the same technique used for couscous, which tells you something about how the dish is understood in Algerian kitchens: rechta is treated as a member of the steamed-semolina family rather than as pasta. The sauce, the marga, is deliberately white. There is no tomato in it. It is built on chicken or lamb, onion, garlic and chickpeas, with turnip, potato and courgette, and it is perfumed with cinnamon and ras el hanout. That pale, sweet-spiced character is unusual in North African cooking and is the reason the dish reads as special. It appears at the occasions that matter. Rechta is strongly associated with Mawlid an-Nabawi, the Prophet's birthday, and with Ashura, Eid al-Fitr and weddings, particularly in Algiers, where it is close to the definitive festive dish. It is a relative of chekhchoukha, which uses torn flatbread rather than noodles and is usually served in a red sauce.

AlgeriaBlessing

Kunafa

Kunafa, also written kanafeh or knafeh, is a dessert of shredded pastry layered with a filling and soaked in syrup, and it belongs to a region rather than a country. It is eaten across Egypt, Libya, the Levant and the wider Arab world, and Palestinian cuisine in particular claims it as its defining sweet. The pastry is kataifi, phyllo dough shredded into fine strands, sold frozen at Middle Eastern and North African grocers. It is coated in melted ghee or butter, pressed into a tray as a base, filled, topped with more of the same and baked until the strands turn deep gold and crisp. Syrup goes on at the end. The filling is where regional versions diverge most, and where this recipe departs from the classic. Traditional kunafa is made with a mild soft cheese, Nabulsi or Akkawi, which stretches when hot and gives the dessert its characteristic pull; mozzarella is the common substitute. The version written here uses a thickened milk and cream filling instead, which is a legitimate variation eaten in Egypt but produces something quite different from a cheese kunafa. In Libya it is made in large quantities during Ramadan, and across the region it is a dessert for occasions rather than an everyday sweet.

Egypt1 hr 5 minBlessing

Ta'ameya, Egyptian fava bean falafel coated in sesame seeds and fried golden

Ta'ameya (Egyptian Falafel)

Ta'ameya is Egyptian falafel, and the difference from every other falafel is the bean. Egypt makes it from dried split fava beans; Lebanon, Israel and most of the Levant use chickpeas, or a mixture. The fava gives a paler, softer, greener interior and a distinctly different flavour, and Egyptians will tell you theirs came first. It is breakfast food above all. Ful wa ta'ameya, fava bean stew with falafel, is the standard Egyptian morning meal, and the phrase names the pair together. The ful is cooked overnight in a large round pot called a qedra, and the ta'ameya is fried fresh in the early hours, so the smell of hot oil on the way to school or work is a shared memory rather than an individual one. Herbs are the other distinction. Parsley, coriander and dill go into the paste in quantity, which is what gives the interior its green colour, and the whole mixture is traditionally pounded in a large stone mortar. Sesame seeds are pressed onto the outside before frying in many versions, giving a crust that chickpea falafel does not have. It is eaten with tahini and baladi bread, and it is one of the cheapest complete meals in the country.

Egypt50 minFoodChef

Tajin sibnekh, a Tunisian baked egg dish with chicken, potato, spinach and harissa

Tajin Sibnekh (Tunisian Chicken and Egg Bake)

A Tunisian tajine is not a Moroccan tagine, and this dish is the clearest illustration of the difference. Moroccan tagine means a stew cooked slowly in a clay pot under a conical lid. Tunisian tajin, or tajin sibnekh, means a baked egg dish, set firm and cut into squares, much closer to an Italian frittata or a Spanish tortilla. The confusion is entirely reasonable and entirely common. The same word travelled to two North African countries and attached itself to two different things. In Tunisia the dish is built from eggs beaten with whatever else is going: potatoes, chicken, spinach, peas, cheese, and the North African spices that mark it as Tunisian rather than European. Harissa and ras el hanout do that marking. Harissa is Tunisia's chilli paste and its most exported product; ras el hanout is the layered spice blend used across the Maghreb. Together they give an egg bake a warmth and heat that a frittata does not have. It is usually served as a starter, though it is substantial enough to be a meal, and it is as good cold the next day as it is hot, which makes it packed lunch and picnic food across the country.

Tunisia50 minFoodChef

Algerian Hariri

Hariri is a rich North African soup made in both Algeria and Morocco, and the Algerian version differs from its Moroccan neighbour in one clear respect: it contains no lentils. Lamb, chickpeas, tomato and a heavy hand of warm spices carry it instead. Ramadan is when it matters most. Hariri is iftar food, the substantial thing eaten to break a day's fast, and it is made in quantity across Algeria through the month. It is also eaten at other times as a starter or a light meal in its own right, and it is served with potatoes or rice as well as on its own. It is not a quick soup, and the source is direct about starting early: the total cooking time runs to around two hours and twenty minutes, most of it slow and unattended, which is what softens the lamb and lets the spices settle into the broth. The spicing is characteristic rather than fierce: turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, paprika and black pepper together, with coriander added near the end so its aroma survives, and lemon wedges served alongside for a sharpness that cuts the richness.

Algeria3 hrDeborah

Ojja, Tunisian eggs poached in a spiced tomato, pepper and merguez sauce

Ojja (Shakshuka)

Ojja is a Tunisian dish of eggs cooked in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, and it is one of the country's most eaten meals. The name comes from Tunisian Arabic slang meaning mixture, which describes it accurately: tomato, pepper, onion, garlic and spice, with eggs finished in the sauce. Whether ojja and shakshuka are the same thing is genuinely disputed, and the disagreement is worth stating rather than resolving. Some Tunisians hold that ojja is made with garlic and no onion while shakshuka uses both. One published account draws the line differently, arguing that in ojja the eggs are stirred through the sauce while in shakshuka they are poached whole on the surface, which would make ojja a close relative of Turkish menemen. Others say the two words name one dish. The recipe here allows both egg treatments and notes that both are used in Tunisia. Its origin is generally placed in Tunisia or Yemen, and it is eaten across North Africa. It has also become a fixture of Israeli cooking over the past few decades, where it is eaten at any meal. Merguez, the North African lamb sausage, and harissa are what mark this version as Tunisian rather than anything else, and toasted whole coriander, caraway and cumin ground fresh give it a depth that pre-ground spice does not.

Tunisia45 minBlessing

Tajine Zitoun

Tajine zitoun is an Algerian chicken and olive dish, zitoun meaning olives in Arabic, and it is a fixture at iftar during Ramadan and at occasions generally. Chicken, green olives, onion and carrot are cooked together and the sauce is finished with lemon juice and, in most versions, a little flour to thicken it. It looks like a Moroccan tagine and is not one, though both countries cook in earthenware and the resemblance is real. What distinguishes Algerian cooking, and this dish in particular, is the spice handling: restrained rather than layered, letting the olives and lemon carry the flavour instead of burying them under a heavy blend. Saffron or turmeric provides the colour. The olives need attention. Two cups of green olives brings a lot of salt with it, and the recipe is explicit about washing them well before use. Some cooks blanch them briefly for the same reason. Cooking the chicken bones in the broth and removing them before serving is the other technique worth noting: the source describes deboning the breast first, using the bones to build the sauce, then returning the browned meat at the end, which gives depth without anyone having to negotiate bones at the table.

Algeria55 minBlessing

Recettes

Recettes à la une