Recettes

Feseekh (Egyptian Salted Fermented Fish)

Feseekh is mullet salted heavily and left to ferment for two to three weeks until it turns silvery and develops its notoriously powerful smell. It is eaten at Sham El-Nessim, the Egyptian spring festival whose origins reach back to pharaonic times, and it is one of the oldest continuously eaten preparations anywhere. **This preparation carries a serious and well-documented food safety risk, and it must be stated plainly.** Improperly prepared feseekh causes botulism poisoning in Egypt every year, sometimes fatally, and the Egyptian health ministry issues public warnings before Sham El-Nessim annually. The conditions the method describes, fish sealed in airtight containers, without refrigeration, for weeks, are precisely those in which *Clostridium botulinum* produces its toxin. In Egypt feseekh is traditionally bought from licensed fassakhani, specialist salters who do this professionally, and the strong advice is to buy it from a reputable source rather than attempting it at home. The recipe is recorded here because it is a genuine and historically significant part of Egyptian foodways, and because AFN's job is to document rather than to omit. It is not recommended as a home project. One error worth noting: feseekh is made from mullet, and the source's ingredient list specifies herring, a different fish, and the basis of a different preparation, renga, which is eaten alongside it.

30 minHardEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Lablabi (Tunisian Chickpea Soup)

Lablabi is Tunisia's chickpea breakfast: a thin, heavily spiced chickpea broth ladled over torn stale bread, finished with a soft egg, tuna, olives, harissa, cumin, lemon and olive oil. It is served in casual counter-service places across the country and eaten with two spoons, mashing the bread down into the broth as you go. It is frugal food by design. Stale bread and dried chickpeas are the base, and everything else is a topping. The broth is not thickened or enriched, the flavour comes from cooking the chickpeas slowly in their own water with cumin, caraway and harissa, and that cooking liquid is the dish. This is the reason the source insists on dried chickpeas rather than tinned: the broth is a by-product you cannot buy. If you do use tinned chickpeas, stock in place of water is the compensation. The name travels. There is an Assyrian chickpea dish also called lablabi, an Iraqi version finished with lemon juice, and the Turkish nohut çorbası, which is made with lamb. The Tunisian one is distinguished by harissa and by the bread at the bottom of the bowl. Traditionally it is breakfast, eaten to start a cold morning. It is now eaten at any hour, and the modern habit of piling on colourful toppings has made it considerably more photogenic than it used to be.

1 hr 25 minEasyTunisia

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

45 minMediumEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

45 minMediumAlgeria

Recette de Blessing · Africook