Recettes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zlabia

Zlabia, also written zalabia, and a close relative of the jalebi of South Asia, is a spiral of fermented batter piped into hot oil, fried until crisp, then dropped straight into cold syrup. In Algeria it belongs to Ramadan almost exclusively. Through the fasting month it is made and sold in quantity, and it is one of the sweets that appears on the table at iftar alongside the dates and the soup. Its bright orange coils are one of the visual markers of the month. The dish travels across an enormous stretch of the world under variations of the same name, jalebi in India and Pakistan, zoolbia in Iran, zalabia across the Arab world, which reflects centuries of movement along trade and pilgrimage routes. Algerians make it their own way, built on flour, starch and yeast, and scented with rose water and lemon in the syrup. The technique has one governing rule, the same one that decides kanafeh: temperature contrast. Hot fried batter into cold syrup gives a shell that stays crisp while the inside takes on sweetness. Both hot, and it goes limp within minutes. The batter also needs a genuine rest. It is yeasted, and that fermentation is what gives the finished spiral its faint tang against the sugar.

AlgeriaBlessing

Kesra

Kesra is the Algerian flatbread: round, soft and chewy, cooked on a flat pan and marked by the rings of the pan it is cooked on. It is eaten with savoury and sweet meals alike, and it is the domestic alternative to the French baguettes that fill Algerian and Tunisian bakeries as a legacy of colonisation. Its names change across the country. It is khobz ftir in Algiers, kesra in the east, and aghroum n'tajin in Kabylia. It is native to eastern Algeria and is traditionally made with semolina rather than plain flour, along with oil, salt and water and nothing else. This particular recipe uses all purpose flour instead, which is a departure from the traditional semolina base and will give a softer, less characteristically grainy bread. It is unleavened. There is no yeast, no rising, only a rest of twenty minutes or so to relax the dough so it stops springing back when rolled. A heavy pan works best, and a cast iron one with embossed rings gives the circular pattern kesra is recognised by. Sesame or nigella seeds are a common addition worked into the dough. It is served alongside Algerian soups and stews, and berkoukes in particular is conventionally eaten with it.

Algeria1 hr 10 minBlessing

Berkoukes

Berkoukes is both a pasta and the dish made from it. The pasta is hand-rolled semolina in small balls, larger than couscous and smaller than a pea, and the dish is the Algerian Berber stew built around it with meat, seasonal vegetables and pulses. It has several names depending on region: aïche, m'hamessa, abazine. The distinction between berkoukes and m'hamsa is size, with berkoukes the larger balls and m'hamsa the smaller. The grains are rolled by hand in a wide dish, traditionally wood or earthenware and now usually metal, which is slow work and why most households buy it ready made. It is winter food and it carries a season. Berkoukes is eaten in Algeria and northeastern Morocco through the cold months and particularly in January, when it marks the harvest of beans, dried fruit and meats, and it reads as a dish of abundance and generosity. The Kabylia version includes quedid, the dried meat also called achadhelouh, along with khlili, the dried mutton fat, and cultured smen. It is served with kesra or another rustic country bread. The source struggles for a word for its consistency and settles on scoup, which is fair: it is too thick for soup and too brothy for stew.

Algeria1 hr 20 minBlessing

Makroud

Makroud is a North African semolina pastry, filled, cut into diamonds, fried and then soaked in honey syrup. Diamond is the literal meaning of the word, and the shape is the point of the name. It belongs principally to Algeria and Tunisia, and it is also made in parts of Morocco, Libya and Malta. Where exactly it began is contested. Some accounts place it in the oases of Mzab and the steppes of Sétif in Algeria; others link it to Kairouan, the spiritual capital of Tunisia, which hosted the first national makroud festival in May 2008. It is written variously as makrout, maqroudh and maqrouth. The filling is the thing that varies most and the thing this recipe departs on. Traditional makroud is packed with dates, and figs and almonds appear as alternatives. **This recipe uses an almond filling rather than the date one**, which is a legitimate variation but not the classic. The semolina base is where the technique lives: it is rubbed with oil and butter and rested for at least two hours, ideally overnight, until it resembles wet oily sand. That rest is not optional. It is what allows the dough to come together with very little water and stay tender rather than tough.

Algeria1 hr 45 minBlessing

Mazagran

Mazagran is strong coffee poured over ice with lemon and sugar, and it has a fair claim to being the original iced coffee. It takes its name from Mazagran in Algeria, and it is Algerian in origin even though it is now far better known in Portugal. The lemon has a practical history. It was added to improve the flavour of low quality coffee beans, which is a origin story shared by a good many drinks, and it turned out to make something worth drinking in its own right. The combination of citrus acidity against the bitterness of strong coffee is what the drink is, and good beans are not wasted on it. It is traditionally served in a tall narrow glass, and there is an eponymous porcelain or clay vessel of the same name. The Portuguese version is the one most people encounter, sometimes made with espresso and lemon, sometimes with rum added. The recipe here is a Nespresso-branded version, which is worth noting: it specifies particular capsules, and any strong espresso or very strong brewed coffee substitutes. What it does not include, oddly, is the lemon that the article itself identifies as the defining ingredient.

Algeria5 minBlessing

Baklawa

Baklawa is layered phyllo pastry filled with crushed nuts and soaked in honey syrup, and in Algeria it is festive food, made for occasions rather than everyday. It is an Ottoman inheritance, and versions of it are made from the Balkans to Egypt under closely related names. The regional differences are real. Turkish fistikli baklava is made with pistachios and a simple sugar syrup. Middle Eastern versions scent the syrup with rosewater. Greek baklava uses walnuts with a generous quantity of cinnamon. The Algerian version leans on almonds and walnuts with honey, and this recipe follows the walnut and cinnamon line, which sits closer to the Greek than to the Turkish. Three components make it, and thinking about it that way makes it manageable: the phyllo, the nut mixture, and the syrup. The rule that decides whether it works is temperature. Cooled syrup goes onto hot pastry, never hot onto hot, and you should hear it sizzle when it hits. Get that wrong and the layers go soggy instead of staying crisp. It then needs four to six hours, or overnight, for the syrup to work through, so it cannot be made and served the same afternoon.

Algeria2 hr 15 minBlessing

Chtitha Batata

Chtitha batata is the Algerian potato stew, and it is built on dersa. Dersa is a paste of garlic and chilli ground in a mortar with cumin, paprika, black pepper and cayenne, and it is the starting point for a whole family of Algerian dishes, chtitha among them. The technique is straightforward and the order matters. The dersa is fried first until fragrant, which is what opens up the spices, and the potatoes go in and are turned through it so every surface is coated before any liquid arrives. Tomato paste follows, then just enough water to cover, and it cooks until the potatoes are soft and the sauce has thickened around them. It is vegan as written and eaten as a main course on its own terms, not as a compromise, which is unusual for a stew of this kind. Meat can go into the sauce and often does, and chickpeas are a common addition that the source's prose mentions though the recipe itself does not include them. It keeps four days refrigerated and reheats well, and the flavour improves overnight as the dersa works into the potatoes.

Algeria55 minBlessing

Makroud el Louse (Algerian Almond Cookies)

Makroud el louse is the almond version of makroud, and it is a genuinely different cookie from the one that name usually brings to mind. Ordinary makroud is a semolina pastry stuffed with date paste and deep-fried, then soaked in syrup. Makroud el louse has no semolina, no dates and no frying: it is ground almonds, sugar and egg, shaped, baked, dipped in an orange-flower syrup and rolled in icing sugar. "Louse" is the Algerian word for almond, so the name simply distinguishes the almond one. Both are cut on the diagonal into the same lozenge shape, which is where the shared name comes from, makroud derives from the Arabic for something cut at an angle. The shape is the family resemblance; the ingredients are not. Because there is no flour in the dough, this version is naturally gluten-free, which is unusual among North African pastries and is worth knowing if you need it. One caution: the source's own instructions send you to a floured work surface, which would undo that. Use icing sugar or a little extra ground almond instead. These are keeping cookies. Sealed in a tin they hold for over a month, which is why they are made in quantity for Eid, Ramadan and weddings rather than a few at a time.

Algeria45 minNympha

Tamina (Algerian Toasted Semolina with Honey)

Tamina is semolina steamed, toasted until golden, and worked into warm honey and butter. It is Algerian, and it is made for occasions, engagements, weddings, baby showers and Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. The three ingredients carry meaning, and the source explains it well: semolina for sustenance, honey for the sweetness of love, butter for blessings. That symbolism is why tamina appears at the birth of a child in particular, offering it to guests is the Algerian way of announcing a new baby, which makes the dish a message as much as a dessert. The toasting is the whole technique and it cannot be rushed. Semolina taken to a proper golden colour tastes nutty and complex; under-toasted, it tastes raw and pasty. It also burns from golden to black very quickly, so it needs constant movement over medium-low heat. The steaming step is unusual and the source explains its own reasoning: it is a safety measure, in case the semolina has not been toasted thoroughly enough. Many recipes skip it and toast alone. Economics have changed the ingredients. Margarine and sugar syrup now often replace butter and honey, which the source records without judgement. One caution: it identifies tamina with bsisa, which is a different Tunisian and Libyan preparation.

Algeria50 minBlessing

Recettes Algeria

Mazagran

Baklawa

Berkoukes

Makroud

Tamina (Algerian Toasted Semolina with Honey)

Chtitha Batata

Makroud el Louse (Algerian Almond Cookies)

Zlabia

Kesra

Tajine Zitoun

Plats emblématiques : Algeria

Recettes Algeria les plus populaires

Dobara

Zviti

Garantita

Mhajab - A Traditional North African Dish

Mtewem

Mhadjeb

Chekhchoukha

Rachta

Algerian Hariri

Tajine Zitoun

Zlabia

Kesra

Berkoukes

Makroud

Mazagran

Baklawa

Chtitha Batata

Makroud el Louse (Algerian Almond Cookies)

Tamina (Algerian Toasted Semolina with Honey)

Recettes Algeria

Recettes à la une

Mazagran

Tamina (Algerian Toasted Semolina with Honey)

Chtitha Batata

Makroud el Louse (Algerian Almond Cookies)

Zlabia

Kesra

Tajine Zitoun

Plats emblématiques : Algeria

Recettes Algeria les plus populaires

Dobara

Zviti

Garantita

Mhajab - A Traditional North African Dish

Mtewem

Mhadjeb

Chekhchoukha

Rachta

Algerian Hariri

Tajine Zitoun

Zlabia

Kesra

Berkoukes

Makroud

Mazagran

Baklawa

Chtitha Batata

Makroud el Louse (Algerian Almond Cookies)

Tamina (Algerian Toasted Semolina with Honey)