Pastilla
Pastilla is a meat pie that fuses sweet and salty flavors. It is quite a laborious dish to make in the traditional way – but there are easier recipes available nowadays.
Chicken is usually used for the meat filling. The meat is spiced very well, cooked in broth, shredded, and wrapped in layers of warka, a very thin sheet of dough. The resulting pastilla is then fried or baked.
Aside from chicken and warka, pastilla calls for almonds, butter, eggs, sugar, onions, garlic, rose water, and lemon juice in its list of ingredients.
Kefta
Kefta is a meatball dish found in Middle Eastern and South Asian cuisines. It is also popular in Algeria.
Kefta is made of ground beef or lamb mixed with egg and different spices such as paprika, onion, turmeric, and parsley. Typically, the meatballs are served in rich and tasty sauce.
In Algeria, a serving of kefta is often accompanied by pasta or bread.
Dolma
Dolma is a stuffed vegetable dish. Normally, Algerians use zucchini, tomato, and onion for this.
They prepare the filling by mixing ground meat, onions, tomatoes, parsley, egg, salt, pepper, and other ingredients. After cutting off the tops of the vegetables, they scoop out the flesh and stuff the resulting hollow space with the meat mixture.
The stuffed vegetables are then cooked, usually by baking.
Basbousa
Basbousa is an Egyptian semolina cake that Algerians profoundly enjoy. It has a noticeably soft texture and sweet flavor.
The flavor is mostly achieved by pouring sugar syrup over the cake after baking. For a few minutes, the cake is allowed to absorb the syrup.
To make the cake a lot more flavorful, lemon juice – and sometimes even rose water or orange water – is added to the syrup.
Baghrir
Baghrir is a semolina pancake with many tiny holes. Recipes for the semolina batter vary according to the preferences of the cook. Some like to use 100% semolina, while others opt to combine semolina with all-purpose flour.
Algerians usually eat baghrir as is or with honey butter. Whether it is eaten for breakfast or as an afternoon snack, baghrir is always a satisfying treat.
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