Lunch in Tunisia

Last weekend I made a lovely Tunisian speciality, brik à l'oeuf.  I hesitated before posting this entry because I was not really thrilled with the results. But, since Ramadan is just around the corner and I probably won't be making these again for a while, here goes.

First of all, the ingredients:

Sheets of brick (or brik)...more about that later

Oil for cooking

Canned tuna (packed in water is better)

Capers

Parsley (finely chopped, flat leaf only)

Shallots (or finely chopped onion, as you wish)

Fresh eggs (and I do stress FRESH...the whole problem for me today was old eggs...)

Here are the briks. And so what is a brik? Check out this link www.ochef.com. I can buy brik in the supermarket in Paris, you may have to substitute phyllo dough or Chinese spring roll skins...you get the idea.

In any case, making brik à l'oeuf is not an exact science, everyone has their own special filling, I chose to fill mine with:

Tuna, chopped parsley, minced shallots, and capers as well as the egg.

The technique for making brik à l'oeuf  involves placing the sheet of brik into a shallow bowl, and then putting  some small amounts of  tuna, minced shallot, minced parsley, capers and then a whole egg in the middle. Then you must somehow move the whole thing to the frying pan where the hot oil awaits...

Into the frying pan...

The sides of the sheet of brik will stick together naturally, but as you can see if you don't have really fresh eggs the yolk will break and your brik won't be so much fun...

Spoon some oil over to cook fast but once again with these worthless old eggs...the yolk is supposed to stay runny but when they break they cook too fast...

This is what it will look like in the end. A lovely golden brown color.

If only the eggs had been fresh....please scroll all the way down to the bottom of this next link and you will see what happens when fresh eggs are used www.davidgreer.ca The yolk is still a little runny and the whole thing is gorgeous. You can use lots of other things to fill the brik as well, potatos, minced meat with spices...it's only a question of imagination...

And, keep reading if you're still interested in Tunisian food because my kids brought me back this excellent vacation photo...

What else but a magnificent Tunisian couscous with peppers on top. Taking this step by step and from the top down we start with the peppers

They look like this when they are raw and  in French they are called "corne de boeuf": beef horn.

Just cut a slit in the side and pour in some salt

Then shake the pepper to get the salt all over,  put them into some hot oil and cook until tender...and then put them on top of your couscous...which I will make another day...

til then, happy lunching!

Comments

[gesundheit]

Sehr wertvolle Informationen! Empfehlen!

[burekaboy]

emily -- i often make the same thing as a fast snack or quick supper. i have never see them so fancy like the way you did it. usually we just fold them up and fry and i like mine to have the yolk runny but that is personal preference. do you add harissa? i need to try making them they way you did next time. i have to find my feuilles de brik at a different store as the one i went to yesterday stopped carrying them. grrr. /bb

[Chubbypanda]

Emily,

That's a really fun dish! We do something very similar in Taiwanese cooking using scallions, an egg, and a thin sort of Chinese pancake. Like you said, the yolk should be runny if possible. Mmmm...

Actually, as annoying as it is to have the yolk from an old egg break on me, I think of it as a sort of insurance. It the egg was old enough for the yolk to break, I probably didn't want to eat the yolk raw anyway. Food poisoning and I are already disturbingly well acquainted.

- Chubbypanda

[Emily]

Hi Ken,

For the peppers, no, you don't take out anything just put in a little salt and that's it. It can be a little messy eating but that's part of the fun.

Hi Walt,

I'm looking forward to seeing your brik à l'oeufs soon!

[Ken Broadhurst]

Emily, about those corne de boeuf peppers, do you take the seeds and ribs out before you put the salt inside and cook them? We have dozens and dozens of peppers like that in our garden and aren't sure what to do with them. Ken

[wcs]

That looks great; we'll have to try that. I need to add feuilles de brik to my shopping list!