North African

Once, while visiting Le Monde des Épices (see page 26), I asked the owner which Jewish cookbook in his large selection he especially liked. His favorite one at the time was 150 Recettes et Mille et Un Souvenirs d’une Juive d’Algérie (150 Recipes and 1,001 Memories of an Algerian Jewish Woman) by Léone Jaffin, one of the steady stream of North African Jewish cookbooks since the 1970s. This book includes such unusual recipes as these Swiss-chard bestels, traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashanah. North African Jews frequently use the bright-green leaves of beets or Swiss chard, called blette. A prayer is recited over the vegetable, called salek in Hebrew, meaning to remove or throw out, with the hope that in the coming year enemies will be removed from the community’s midst. I have added curry powder, pine nuts, and currants to this tasty turnover, which I sometimes serve with salad as a first course.

Brik are crisp, flaky appetizers found in Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan kitchens in France. The word refers to the dough, similar to the Moroccan warka, which one makes by tossing fistfuls of a wet, pastelike batter onto a hot grill. The batter miraculously spreads into a thin, pliable sheet, which may be used as an appetizer or dessert wrapper. You can find unbaked feuilles de brik (brik leaves) in Middle Eastern food stores or online (see A Source Guide, page 370). If you can’t, use wonton wrappers instead, or even phyllo dough, although your finished product will not have the same grainy texture as real brik. I often make these filled pastries as an appetizer at Hanukkah, instead of potato pancakes.

Cairo vendors sell these bread rings covered with sesame seeds from large baskets, or sometimes threaded onto long wooden poles. They often sell them with zaatar (page 47) or do’a (page 55) to dip in. In summer, they cry their wares at the entrances of open-air cinemas, or carry them round the tables and across the rows of chairs, chanting “Semit! Semit!” The audience eagerly collect provisions to last them through the performance: rings of semit, cheese, salted grilled melon seeds or leb, peanuts, and Coca-Colas. They while away the time as they wait for darkness to fall and the film to start by eating and chatting; or they watch the children running up and down the aisles, and dancing on the cinema stage to popular Arab and Greek tunes. (We danced when we were children.)

In Turkey it is sade pilav; in Egypt it is roz mefalfel. The ingredients and quantities are the same as in the first recipe. Turks always use butter and plenty of it for rice to be eaten hot, and use olive oil when it is to be eaten cold. Butter is truly wonderful with rice, but some people today have turned to using a bland vegetable or seed oil, sunflower oil being the most common.

Walking along the corniche or waterfront in Alexandria, one is irresistibly lured by the smell of corn grilled over charcoal. Vendors sit behind little braziers filled with glowing coals, fanning the flames furiously, or letting the sea breeze do it for them.

In Morocco tea—a refreshing infusion of both green tea and mint—is the symbol of hospitality, prepared with art, served with ceremony, and drunk at all times of the day. Introduced in the nineteenth century by the English, tea became an indispensable drink. It is traditionally served in richly engraved English-style silver teapots (the grandest are from Manchester) on silver trays with tiny legs. It is poured from a great height into small, ornamented colored glasses. Spearmint is the type of mint used, and the infusion is sweetened in the teapot. In Morocco they like it very sweet, with many lumps of sugar, but you can suit your taste.

A famous North African specialty with an exciting bittersweet flavor.

This famous and formidable chili paste goes into many North African, especially Tunisian, dishes. It keeps very well for many weeks in the refrigerator if covered with oil. You can now find it store-bought more easily, including some homemade-type artisanal varieties.

Preserved lemons lend a unique and distinctive flavor to North African dishes. You find the softened lemons in jars, or sold loose in street markets. They are now also common fare in the south of France. You can make them yourself. They take about 4 weeks to mature and can last a year. When they are ready to use, the pulp is scooped out and thrown away—only the skin is eaten. You can use small limes with thin skins, or ordinary lemons with thick ones. There are three common ways of making them.

In North Africa, sfendj, also called khfaf, are sold by street vendors. People buy them for breakfast. They can be plain or with raisins. Eat them hot as soon as they are done or reheat in the oven. Serve them with honey or dusted with sugar.

Basbousa is a popular Egyptian pastry, also called helwa, which means “sweet.”

Some years ago, when a block of flats crumbled in the suburbs of Cairo, a newspaper jokingly asked people to save any leftover basbousa to rebuild it.

Although not my favorite pastry, makroud is very popular in North Africa, especially in Tunisia, which is a land of dates. The pastries are usually deep-fried in oil, then dipped in warm honey. I prefer the lighter baked version.

These most famous of Moroccan pastries are best known abroad by their French name, cornes de gazelle or gazelle’s horns. Stuffed with ground-almond paste and curved into horn-shaped crescents, they are ubiquitous wedding-party fare. I have eaten some with a very thin hard crust, and some with a thicker, crumbly crust. This one, made with eggs rather than butter, is thin and crisp.

This Moroccan pastry is a very long coil (hence the name m’hencha, meaning “snake”) of fillo pastry filled with a ground-almond paste. It is stunning to look at and exquisite. I give very large quantities, because it is the thing to make for a grand occasion, but of course you can make it smaller and reduce the quantities. The flavor is better if you grind the blanched almonds yourself rather than use commercially ground ones.

This is not an old, traditional ice cream but one developed by Egyptian expatriates in Europe with traditional ingredients and flavorings. It is very rich. Some Indian and Middle Eastern stores sell blanched and slivered or ground pistachios. If they are not available, you will have to buy shelled pistachios and blanch them for a few moments in boiling water to detach their skins, then peel them (a time-consuming labor), and grind them. Use 1 cup shelled pistachios to obtain 1 cup ground ones.

An Egyptian breakfast of boiled whole wheat, with hot milk poured over and sprinkled with sugar called belila, is turned into a celebratory dish on the 10th of Moharram (the first month of the Muslim calendar), when it is embellished with a flower fragrance and with nuts. Unless it is very young, wheat remains chewy even after lengthy cooking, so I use barley, which is less common but softens relatively quickly.