Rachta
Abuja, Nigeria ·
Aperçu
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.
Got the fine semolina from the Turkish supermarket near West Croydon station. I was doubtful when you said no need to knead the dough, but after resting it for 30 minutes under the cling film it rolled out very smooth paa. Divide into 3 pieces makes it much easier to handle on a small counter.