Tunisian Cuisine

Tunisian cuisine is a blend of European and Oriental culinary traditions. Tunisia offers a "sun cuisine", based mainly on olive oil, spices, tomatoes, seafood and meat, especially lamb. Unlike other North African cuisine, Tunisian food is spicy hot. A popular condiment and ingredient is harissa. Harissa is a hot red pepper sauce made of red chili peppers and garlic, flavored with coriander, cumin, olive oil and often tomatoes.

Like this spicy sauce or chili peppers, the tomato is also an ingredient which cannot be separated from the cuisine of Tunisia. Tuna, olives, eggs and different varieties of cereals, pasta, herbs and spices are also ingredients which are featured prominently in Tunisian cooking.

Lamb is the basis of most meat dishes. A favorite way to prepare young lamb is "coucha" - portions of shoulder meat are rubbed with a sauce of olive oil, salt, a sprig of mint, a touch of cayenne pepper and turmeric and baked in a slow oven in a tightly covered earthenware dish. Couscous is the national dish of Tunisia and can be prepared in many ways. It is traditionally eaten with lamb and the vegetables (carrots, little white cabbages, turnips) only lightly cooked.

A summer "dinner" may consist of home pressed olive oil, a few green olives, country bread (heavy and grainy) and a salad of sliced scarlet radishes or plump tomatoes served with grilled fish.

Seafood is a mainstay of the Tunisia diet. The varieties of seafood from the imperial royal shrimp to the familiar and much appreciated sardine are endless and each region has its recipes and secrets for preparation.

Sweet loving Tunisians have adopted the Turkish baklava - layers of whisper thin pastry interspersed with ground pine nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios, bathed in golden butter, baked and dipped in honey syrup.

Holidays are occasions for the preparation of traditional specialties and though there is some leeway given to the chef's creativity. On the Mouled, zgougou, a sweet pudding of ground pine seeds, topped by a vanilla cream and decorated with grated nuts is served throughout Tunisia. The Aid El Fitr, a day marking the end of the Ramadan fast is celebrated by families visiting each other, bringing and receiving plates of pastries, home baked or purchased with bakloua or makroudh as all time favorites. Aid El Kebir brings to the table a myriad of dishes prepared with lamb - cuminia, osbane, mechoui -, lamb chops or cuts grilled over charcoal. Ras El Am, the Moslem New Year is greeted not with champagne but with mloukhia.

Other specific dishes are:

Aknef: lamb steamed on a bed of rosemary, accompanied by chorba.
Borghol bil allouche: simmered burghul cooked with lamb, peas and chickpeas.
Brik: tiny parcels of minced lamb, beef, or vegetables and an egg wrapped in thin pastry and deep fried.
Bouza: rich and sticky sorghum puree.
Chakchouka: a vegetarian ragout similar to ratatouille with chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions served with a poached egg.
Chorba: spicy soup often containing a type of short pasta shaped like rice grains, called langues d'oiseaux or "birds' tongues".
Felfel mahchi: sweet peppers stuffed with meat, usually lamb, and served with harissa sauce.
Guenaoia: lamb or beef stew with chilies, okra, sweet peppers and coriander.
Houria: cooked carrot salad.
Lablabi: rich garlicky soup made with chickpeas.
Kabkabou: Light and subtly seasoned fish simmered in a tomato-based sauce.
Koucha: whole baby lamb baked in a clay case with rosemary.
Makroud: semolina cake stuffed with dates, cinnamon and grated orange peel.
Masfouf: sweetened couscous, the Tunisian version of the Moroccan seffa.
Mechouia Salad: an hors d'oeuvre of grilled sweet peppers, tomatoes and onions mixed with oil lemon, tuna fish and hard-boiled eggs.
Merguez: small spicy sausages.
Mhalbya: cake made with rice, nuts and geranium water.
Noicer pasta: very thin, small squares of pasta made with semolina and all-purpose flour, flavored with cinnamon and rosebuds.
Ojja: scrambled egg dish made of tomatoes and mild green chilies supplemented with various meats and harissa.
Osbane: pieces of animal gut stuffed with meat and offal.
Salata batata: hot potato salad flavored with caraway seeds.
Samsa: layers of thin pastry alternated with layers of ground roast almonds, and sesame seeds, baked in lemon and rosewater syrup.
Tlithou pasta: small pasta made with semolina, yeast, olive oil, salt and water, mainly prepared for Aid el Kebir.
Zitounia: veal ragout simmered in a tomato sauce and onions, flavored with olives.
Torshi: turnips marinated with lime juice.
Yo-yo: donuts made with orange juice, deep fried then dipped in honey syrup.

Tunisian cooking is something really sundry. Its bold, earthy flavors are wonderfully exotic and worth experimenting with.