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Rachta is made of dough that is similar to pasta. It also has zucchini, chicken sauce, and chickpeas. The dish is a bit similar to Chekhchoukha but a lot lighter when it comes to thickness.
Rachta Recipe
Rachta or Rechta is a type of noodle that is usually prepared in Algeria with meat or chicken cooked in a vegetable sauce.
The noodles are made with a combination of flour, salt, water, and ghee, while the sauce is made with chicken pieces, onions, garlic, oil, chickpeas, ras el hanout, cinnamon, turnips, potatoes, and zucchini.
The sauce is perfumed with cinnamon flavor. The vegetables are mainly zucchinis, and parsnips added to chickpeas. Once cooked, the rechta noodles are placed into a large dish and topped with the sauce (marga).
Rechta is prepared on major occasions such as Al Mawlid Annabawi, Ashura, Eid Al Fitr (celebration of the end of Ramadan), marriages, etc.
Below is our homemade Rechta recipe and there is nothing better than homemade.
Algerian homemade Rechta (noodles)
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 3/4 cup fine semolina
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 water more or less
- olive oil
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix semolina, flour and salt.
- Sprinkle water over the semolina mixture, little by little.
- Mix everything with your hand and stop adding water once the dough gets together. No need to knead the dough.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rest on the counter for about 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 3 pieces. You can do this step before letting the dough rest.
- Dust your working board with flour and roll out each piece of dough into thin long strip or sheet, using a rolling pin (you may need to cut the long strip into half to make the work easy).
- Pass each pasta sheet (slightly dusted with flour) in the pasta machine to get a thin sheet. You should set up your machine to the thickness close to that of your pasta sheets, then end up with the lowest setting to get the thinest sheet.
- Place your thinnest sheets on a clean kitchen towel and let them dry for about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Pass each pasta sheet in the part of the machine that makes thin noodles.
- Place a plate underneath to catch the noodles or the Rechta.
- Once you make about a plate of Rechta, start to steam it. Place the Rechta in the top of a steamer( the top of the steamer should be oiled with olive oil to avoid stickiness).
- Steam for about 5 minutes or less.
- Work on the other pasta sheets and make more Rechta.
- Steam the Rechta in small batches.
- Dump the steamed Rechta in a large shallow dish.
- Drizzle with about 1 tbsp olive oil and start separating the noodles with hands. You may not need to add olive oil for the second batch of Rechta.
- Once all the Rechta or noodles are separated, let cool then store in ziploc bags.
- Place the bags in the freezer for later use.
Notes
In this recipe, I have used 2 measurements of water, but the amount of water depends on your semolina and flour.