Breakfast
Merguez Shakshuka
Merguez browned first, then eggs poached in a tomato and pepper sauce built on harissa and caraway. Hotter and…
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All 5555 recipes
Tunisian recipes
Harissa, eggs and pastry folded around both. 40 Tunisian recipes, from the everyday to the ambitious.
The 40 recipes cover 9 of the site’s categories, among them 14 dinners, 7 desserts, 6 appetisers and small plates, 4 breakfasts, 4 lunches and 2 bakes. Of these, 4 are ready in 30 minutes or less, start to finish; the quickest are Slata Tounsia (20 min), Thé aux Pignons (25 min) and Ojja (30 min). For 16, the method times a wait such as rising, chilling or marinating, and the time at the top of the recipe includes it. By difficulty: 20 easy, 18 medium and 2 hard.
As written, 17 are vegetarian, 11 vegan, 13 gluten-free and 28 dairy-free. Another 6 meet a diet label only with a swap the recipe names, and the recipe says which.
Tunisian recipes — all 40 recipes
Appetizers
Tunisian Brik
A sheet of malsouka pastry folded around tuna, capers, parsley and a whole raw egg, then deep fried so the yolk is…
Side dish
Salade Méchouia
Tunisian grilled salad: peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic charred over flame, peeled and chopped rough with…
Condiment
Harissa
Dried chillies rehydrated and pounded with garlic, caraway and coriander seed into a coarse red paste. Nothing like…
Breakfast
Lablabi
Chickpeas in a cumin and garlic broth poured over torn stale bread, with a raw egg cracked in and stirred through…
Appetizers
Slata Tounsia
Tomato, cucumber, pepper and onion cut very small and dressed with olive oil and lemon. The Tunisian cut is finer…
Appetizers
Omek Houria
Carrots boiled soft, crushed with harissa, garlic and caraway, and eaten cold with bread. The name means "your…
Lunch
Kafteji
Peppers, tomato, courgette, potato and onion fried separately, then chopped together on a board with fried eggs…
Appetizers
Salata Blankit
Warm potato salad with harissa, capers and olives and no mayonnaise anywhere. Dressed while hot so the potato takes…
Appetizers
Doigts de Fatma
Fatma's fingers: malsouka pastry rolled around cheese, parsley and meat and fried into crisp cigars. The same pastry…
Lunch
Chorba Frik
Lamb and freekeh soup thickened by the grain itself, sharpened with harissa and finished with a great deal of…
Lunch
Hlelem
A thick soup of hand-broken noodles, three kinds of bean and a lot of greens, red with harissa. Winter food from the…
Breakfast
Bsissa
Roasted barley and chickpea flour with fennel and coriander seed, stirred into oil and water or milk. Eaten for…
Desserts
Mhalbiya
Rice-flour pudding scented with geranium water rather than rose, which is the Tunisian signature. Set in glasses and…
Dinner
Couscous Tunisien
Lamb and vegetables in a red harissa broth, with the couscous steamed over the pot so it takes the vapour. The…
Quick Meals
Ojja
Eggs broken into a fierce harissa and tomato sauce with merguez and left barely set. Fifteen minutes, one pan, and…
Dinner
Marqa Hlouwa
Lamb stewed with quince, prunes and cinnamon into something sweet against the harissa. Made for Eid, and the…
Dinner
Kamounia
Liver or beef stewed slowly with an aggressive quantity of cumin — kamoun — until the sauce is dark and thick. One…
Dinner
Mermez
Lamb and chickpeas in a thin red broth with a lot of onion, poured over bread or couscous. The plainest of the…
Dinner
Tajine Tunisien
Nothing like a Moroccan tagine: this is a baked omelette thick with chicken, cheese and parsley, cut into squares…
Dinner
Felfel Mahchi
Long green peppers stuffed with spiced meat and rice and braised in a red sauce until the skins blister and slip…
Dinner
Kabkabou
Fish braised with preserved lemon, olives, tomato and saffron, from the coast. The sauce is finished around the fish…
Dinner
Complet Poisson
The Tunisian fish plate: grilled fish with fried peppers, potatoes, a salad, tastira and harissa, all on one dish…
Dinner
Hout Mechoui
Whole fish grilled over coals with nothing on it but oil and salt, served with tastira and lemon. The restraint is…
Dinner
Rouz Jerbi
The rice of Djerba: steamed rather than boiled, mixed through with lamb, herbs and spinach until it is green and…
Dinner
Osbane
Sausage casings filled with rice, offal, herbs and a great deal of chard, simmered and then sliced into a stew. The…
Dinner
Berkoukes
Hand-rolled semolina pearls the size of peppercorns, cooked in a lamb and vegetable broth. Larger than couscous…
Lunch
Fricassé
A small fried bread roll split and packed with tuna, potato, olives, egg and harissa. Sold everywhere, eaten…
Baking
Mlawi
A layered square flatbread folded with oil and cooked in a dry pan, so it separates into leaves. Sold from stalls at…
Baking
Khobz Tabouna
The semolina country loaf baked against the wall of a clay oven, and the everyday bread of rural Tunisia. A hot tray…
Breakfast
Ftair
Rings of yeasted dough fried until they blister and puffed hollow, then dusted with sugar. Breakfast, and best eaten…
Dinner
Madfouna
Lamb and chard buried under a lid of dough and baked, so the meat steams in its own juices. Madfouna means buried…
Desserts
Makroudh
Semolina diamonds filled with a date paste scented with orange and cinnamon, fried and dipped in honey. Kairouan…
Desserts
Bambalouni
A single large ring doughnut fried to order and handed over in paper with sugar on it. Sidi Bou Said sells them by…
Desserts
Samsa
Triangles of pastry filled with ground almonds and sesame, fried and soaked in a lemon syrup. Not the Central Asian…
Desserts
Zlabia
Batter piped into hot oil in loops and spirals, fried crisp and dropped into saffron syrup. Sold in coils a foot…
Desserts
Assidat Zgougou
A dark pudding made from Aleppo pine seed, layered with cream and nuts. Made for the Prophet’s birthday, tastes of…
Desserts
Masfouf
Couscous steamed and then worked with butter or oil, sugar, raisins and nuts — the sweet version, eaten for…
Drinks
Thé aux Pignons
Green tea boiled hard with mint and sugar and poured over a spoonful of pine nuts sitting in the glass. The nuts…
Dinner
Harissa Chicken
Chicken thighs marinated in harissa, yoghurt, lemon and garlic, then roasted until the skin is blistered and the…