Do you know that before the Arab Spring, I didn't know where Tunisia was? Really. Not a clue. Then the country erupted and CNN couldn't stop talking about it, and I had to google it. Until a couple years ago, to my Americano mind, it was still just a tiny country at the top of Africa, albeit a country that changed the face of modern Arabia. Oh the arrogance of it all!
Then I met my husband, a Tunisian national. He and his friends, who I call Team Tunisia (sometimes Team Arabia if others join in) are the mainstay of my social life. Life is a rum old business isn't it? If I am using my own words, I'd say life is freakin amazing...never a dull moment!
Now my cooking world is filled with attempts at making food that is at least North African in flavor. I struggle with getting just that exact Tunis taste to my food, and it's difficult. As he isn't fussy, and eats whatever is put on the table with a "very nice," it isn't TOO stressful. And here is the thing: I love most Tunisian food. And I love him. When you love someone, whether it is your person, your children, your parents, whatever...you cook with affection.
I do know women who don't cook, or hate cooking, and while we laugh about it together I still look at them and feel...bemused. But hey, I didn't cook for yonks when I came to Salalah. I raised two kids, sometimes being all momish and making healthy, edible meals, and sometimes I couldn't be arsed and served cornflakes. I keeps it real gentle reader. Salalah was my first experience at utter oneness, and I never once cooked for myself. I just couldn't be bothered. I picked up a cheap meal at an Indian restaurant (three years ago, food was cheaper) on the way home from work, and that was that.
I think I bought a pizza the first time Mehdi came over for iftar. Seriously. Iftar, by the way, is the meal that breaks one's fast during Ramadan, when Muslims don't take anything by mouth from sunup to sundown. Yeah. Pizza. Like that happens now! Ha!
Now I will make brik, or breek, depending how one's Tunisian friend spells it in English. Brik is like a Tunisian spring roll, and they are just heavenly. My lovely friend Asma taught me and a group of womenfolk here in Lala land how to do it the other day.
Then I met my husband, a Tunisian national. He and his friends, who I call Team Tunisia (sometimes Team Arabia if others join in) are the mainstay of my social life. Life is a rum old business isn't it? If I am using my own words, I'd say life is freakin amazing...never a dull moment!
Now my cooking world is filled with attempts at making food that is at least North African in flavor. I struggle with getting just that exact Tunis taste to my food, and it's difficult. As he isn't fussy, and eats whatever is put on the table with a "very nice," it isn't TOO stressful. And here is the thing: I love most Tunisian food. And I love him. When you love someone, whether it is your person, your children, your parents, whatever...you cook with affection.
I do know women who don't cook, or hate cooking, and while we laugh about it together I still look at them and feel...bemused. But hey, I didn't cook for yonks when I came to Salalah. I raised two kids, sometimes being all momish and making healthy, edible meals, and sometimes I couldn't be arsed and served cornflakes. I keeps it real gentle reader. Salalah was my first experience at utter oneness, and I never once cooked for myself. I just couldn't be bothered. I picked up a cheap meal at an Indian restaurant (three years ago, food was cheaper) on the way home from work, and that was that.
I think I bought a pizza the first time Mehdi came over for iftar. Seriously. Iftar, by the way, is the meal that breaks one's fast during Ramadan, when Muslims don't take anything by mouth from sunup to sundown. Yeah. Pizza. Like that happens now! Ha!
Now I will make brik, or breek, depending how one's Tunisian friend spells it in English. Brik is like a Tunisian spring roll, and they are just heavenly. My lovely friend Asma taught me and a group of womenfolk here in Lala land how to do it the other day.
Brik
Brik pastry is available in Carrefour near the eggs. Outside areas with a lot of North Africans, I don't know where you'd find it, but spring roll wrappers are acceptable. They are thicker, but still nice enough. Brik pastry is simply much thinner, for a really crispy fried experience. Rabiha (another friend) talked about how in Tunisia the women make this thin pastry from scratch. Ain't happnin'.
You will need for 12 large briks:
A package of brik pastry or a package of large spring roll wrappers
A dozen eggs
1 cup chopped parsley, flat leaf
1 cup finely chopped onions
some capers, unless you think they are revolting
good quality canned tuna
The canned tuna thing is very Tunsian. It just is. I dunno why.
Lay your brik pastry on a clean surface and line it with parsley, onions, tuna, and capers thusly:
See how thin that pastry is?
See where the fold is? See it? Drop an egg in there, fold the pastry over it and place it in hot vegetable oil. Fry that baby up crispy. You'd think the egg would run out into the oil, but it doesn't. It cooks too quickly to do so, setting up quickly in the marvy parsley nest. You can add leftover mashed potatoes to that mix, take out the tuna, whatever. Mashed potato brik is quite Algerian really. I've made it that way, and it's delish.
She is gently spooning frying oil over the brik. We ate them with mutton and couscous. Well worth the effort, and the expansion to your waistline. The couscous directions are in my last post, by the by.
My very own Team Tunisia. I'd put a full pic but he is just too dang good looking!
As for the cake, I made some disgusting Nutella muffins. Nutella is delightful stuff, and so I choked a couple down, but these had a greasy feel to them that I found quite off-putting. It is certainly an easy recipe, but if I were to make Nutella muffins again, I would use a regular recipe, not a fast yeast one.
. I will never use it again, and I don't recommend you do either!
1/2 cup melted butter
6 T sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 T yeast (one packet)
1/2 t salt
250 ml of milk (sorry for the metric, but I really had to use it)
about a half cup of Nutella
Add the sugar to the melted butter and let cool a bit. Beat in the eggs. In a seperate bowl, mix the flour, yeast, Add the milk and butter mix and stir until just mixed, leaving the batter lumpy.
Here is my advice. LET THE BATTER REST FOR 30 MINUTES. This gives it more loft than if you bake them right away. The yeast gets a chance to rise a bit. The original directions didn't recommend this, but I sure do. Blech.
Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and fill 2/3 full with batter. Push about a teaspoon of nutella into the middle.
Bake about 20 minutes at 350.
If you make these and you have more success than I did, let me know your trick!
This is the original pic, not mine. I forgot my mobile at home so I couldn't take a pic before the teachers here ate them. But this is pretty accurate, except my nutella was just globbed in the middle.
My cooking adventures continue, as does the experience of an inter-cultural marriage. Those of us brave enough to marry someone completely outside our realm of experience are a bit like pioneers eh? Crikey I should write a book someday!
Love,
Felicia El Aid
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