Week 47 - Tunisian

Tunisian restaurants here in NYC are rare, and I don't think we've ever been to one. Our only exposure to Tunisian food specifically was on our visit to London back in 2015 (which we never finished recapping), where we found a Tunisian restaurant and had a lovely dinner (that will show up in a WorldEats post someday). With such limited knowledge of Tunisian dishes, nothing immediately jumped out at me for the Week 47 Tunisian challenge, but after reading through some recipes, I decided on lablabi (chickpea soup) and kesra bread (which often turns up online as Algerian, so I will probably be making it again whenever we get there).

For the lablabi, I followed a recipe from Serious Eats, which was itself from Mollie Katzen's The Heart of the Plate. It seemed fairly easy to make (with my convenience modifications), starting with cooking onion and cumin in olive oil, then adding some carrots (used baby carrots) and garlic, and eventually a couple cans of chickpeas. Dried probably would have tasted better, but didn't have the time for that. The rest of the ingredients were a few spoonfuls of lemon juice, two cups of vegetable broth, more cumin, a little salt, and lots of black pepper. It tasted really healthy and hearty.

To go along with the lablabi, I followed a recipe from Our Tunisian Table for kesra bread. I halved the original recipe, so I mixed 2.5 cups flour, 1/2 tbsp salt, and 1/4 cup olive oil, and then slowly added in water while mixing it all together. It had been a while since I'd made bread, but somehow the water amount (about 3/4 cup) ended up being just right for a dough that was smooth but also firm enough to stay together. A little bit of kneading and then I split the dough into four balls, sprayed them with olive oil, and let them rest about 20 minutes.

After that, it was time to roll them out into circles (not perfect, but the closest to circles I've ever gotten), poke them with a toothpick to prevent air bubbles, and cook them in a greased pan. All four came out a little differently, and I have no idea if the texture was right since I've never had this bread before, but it was tasty.

This was my first time cooking Tunisian food, so this will count for the AtWCC too. Looking forward to trying more!