#47 Tunisia
- Jen
- Mar 14, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2022
Tunisia is one of the 22 countries with a Mediterranean coastline and the key ingredients in its cuisine reflect this location and climate: olive oil, tomatoes, seafood, and fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables. Similar to other north African cuisines, like Morocco, a variety of meats are eaten but lamb is the traditional favourite, with pork not eaten at all, for religious reasons.
What makes Tunisian food stand out from that of some of its Med neighbours is the spiciness of its food. Harissa, well known in Moroccan dishes, is just as used in Algeria and Tunisia. It’s a chilli pepper paste made with olive oil, garlic and spices such as cumin, coriander, caraway and paprika. It’s both a condiment and an ingredient in many dishes, and it’s delicious!
The Tunisian spice blend is known as tabil, which is the word for coriander. In its most basic form it contains coriander, caraway and chilli and, as the name suggests, coriander should be the dominant flavour. It’s similar to, but much simpler than, ras el hanout that you find in Morroco.
As well as spices, Tunisian dishes also typically include plenty of fresh herbs, such as parsley, coriander, mint, oregano and basil.
Traditional Tunisian breads are unleavened and baked in clay ovens, coming out charred and fluffy. Breads are served with most meals and are used as a tool for eating many dishes. Bread is so important in Tunisia that in December 1983 there were ten days of riots in the country where over 100 people lost their lives over the rise of the price of bread.
Potatoes have been grown in Tunisia since at least the 19th century, possibly introduced from Sicily. They’re often included in couscous dishes (see below) and are the star of their own dishes, such as banatage, which is a kind of filled potato croquette, or batata bel kamoun, a spicy meat and potato stew.
Couscous
"Here's some little-known facts about couscous: they didn't add the second ‘cous’ until 1979."
- Chandler Bing, Friends, Season 6, The One That Could Have Been
Couscous is the national dish of Tunisia. Contrary to popular belief (including my own until recently), it is not a wholegrain, but a pasta, made from wheat formed into tiny balls. Traditionally, it’s cooked in a special steamer known as a couscoussier.
There are loads of meals you can make with couscous and the recipes vary all over north Africa. Tunisian couscous is usually made with a tomato-based sauce whereas Algerian or Moroccan couscous can be white in colour as it doesn’t always include tomato or harissa, and often includes sweeter ingredients such as raisins, caramelised onions and cinnamon.
Traditional Tunisian couscous is prepared with meat, vegetables and spices, as follows:
Sauté onion in olive oil and add garlic, harissa, tomato puree, coriander and chilli powder.
Add lamb pieces (I used leg), carrots and lamb stock or water. Cover and leave to simmer slowly.
Add courgette, potato and chickpeas and keep simmering.
Use some of the cooking liquid to cook the couscous.
Before you even add the lamb to the pot, when you sniff up the harissa, onion and garlic aromas your nose is almost expecting lamb to hit it next, so perfect is their match. Slow-cooking the meat and vegetables in the harissa-spiced liquid allows a multi-way transaction of flavour: the sweet spiciness of the harissa permeates the veg and the flavour of lamb saturates each little ball (not grain) of couscous. The cooking broth brings out the best sweet quality of the carrots, and the courgettes are completely bursting with flavour. Then we have the ultimate flavour sponge that is the potato: beautiful! This simple dish with the delicious veg, the fluffy, delicately spiced couscous, tender lamb and creamy-yet-firm textured chickpeas is an easy crowd pleaser or an example of batch cooking for the week ahead at its finest.
Other popular Tunisian dishes
Omek houria translates as ‘your mother angel’ as it’s assumed that the first maker of this dish was an angel, presumably because it’s so tasty. It’s a carrot and harissa dip that can be an appetizer with bread, spread onto sandwiches or served with tuna and eggs. I didn’t make this dip for this blog, but I have made this: Moroccan-style spicy carrot dip a couple of times and I highly recommend this recipe.
Brik is a filled filo pastry parcel found in most former Ottoman Empire countries. It’s usually deep-fried and in Tunisia it’s preferred with a whole egg stuffed inside, but might also include cheese, potato, spinach, meat or anchovies.
Tajine is not to be confused with a Moroccan tagine. A Tunisian tajine is a baked egg dish, similar to a Spanish tortilla. It’s usually spicy and baked with potato, cheese or chicken, and is equally good hot or cold.
Lablebi is humble peasant food - cheap, accessible, and filling. This is a thin spicy soup of chickpeas and pieces of stale bread, quite often topped with an egg. The concept of this dish reminds me of the Italian aqua e sale in that it makes use of cheap and leftover ingredients, resulting in something wonderfully comforting and delicious.
Sweet treats in Tunisia include dried fruits, nuts, honey, rose water, citrus flavours, crispy filo pastry and are generally very sweet. Think baklava. Couscous can also be made into a sweet dish, known as masfouf, by soaking it in milk and mixing in nuts, dried fruits and honey.
Ojja merguez
The poached eggs in tomato sauce dish we call shakshouka and associate with the Middle East is up there with smashed avocado toast in its popularity on the brunch scene amongst urban millennials in the UK. However, shakshuka/chakchouka is in fact Tunisian in origin, brought to Israel only in the 1950s, and elevated to global fame by chef Yotam Ottolenghi. Perhaps even more shocking than the revelation that it’s not actually Israeli, is that traditional shakshuka doesn’t always include eggs!
The dish we refer to as shakshuka is what is known as ojja in Tunisia: eggs poached in a tomato & pepper sauce spiced with harissa.
Merguez is a lamb sausage and is a talisman of flavour on the sausage front, being spiced with cumin, chilli and harissa, which gives it a delightful reddish hue. Merguez sausages are readily available in the UK.
Lo and behold, we have ojja merguez, a popular Tunisian breakfast or dinner dish. The eggs can either be poached whole in the sauce, or cooked mixed into the sauce in a similar manner to Turkish menemen.
To make ojja merguez:
Sauté onion and red pepper in olive oil, then add garlic, harissa, tomato puree, spices and cooked merguez sausages, cut into bitesize pieces.
Add the eggs, cover and cook until whites are set, and yolks are not. I went for poaching the eggs whole in little wells in the sauce.
Wonderful!
Harissa is the best!
Tunisia, I must say goodbye, and hop on over to…SYRIA!
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