 CUISINE |
 Plats traditionnels |
Couscous: typical from Maghrebi, couscous is the traditional dish that all regions of Algeria share. It is prepared for important events with rolled semolina decorated with meat, vegetables and a sauce, which usualy indicate its origin.
Chakhchoukha: The Chakhchoukha is an eastern dish. Its secrets lies in the preparation of a paste, which success is determinant for the dish. It is finally decorated with several meats (mutton, chicken) and a rich sauce.
Ôsbaan: always prepared at Aïd El Adha (the sacrifice day), the Osbaan is composed of pieces of rumen stuff and sewed before being cooked. They can be served alone, with sauce or as a couscous garniture.
Harira: Traditionnal soup from the ouest of algeria. Based on mixed vegetables and peaces of meat. His originality remains the uses of spices (as raselhanout, a tipical mix from Oran).
| Typical Cuisine from Algiers |
Result of an identity forged for centuries, the typical Algiers cuisine is composed of dishes prepared with fresh or dried vegetables (onion, garlic, olives, tomatoes), cereals, poultry, meat and fish. They are also very rich in spices, appart from the traditional basilica, thyme, laurel they also use on a daily basis cinnamon, coriander, ginger, etc. Bread is also an important part of the algerian alimentation and which diversity goes from the semolina cake, home made bread, to the french "baguette".
The Algiers' originality lies in the various uncooked and cooked vegetables preparations and the typical offal preparations The mutton's rumen, the "bouzelouf" (mutton head) and veal's feet are also popular traditional dishes. The meat is served in tadjines (as veal with olives/prune/almond) and the different varieties of couscous. Kebab are also a very popular way of eating meat; at the menu liver, meat, heart in the abatoires of algiers. The algiers' cuisine also integrate sweet dishes such as meat served with dry grapes and prunes. The seafood and fishes (grilled, panned or sauced) such as the grouper, the whiting or the swordfish is also a particularity in the whole lithoral.
The is also a large range of soups, amongst them we can taste the chicken soup "birds tongues", the spicy garlic soup, the fish soup, the oregano or the savage thyme soup. The chorba, white or red, is a traditional soup served for the fast day rupture during the Ramadan month. As the couscous, each region or woman has its own. Last but not least, Algiers is reknown for his cakes (baklaoua, kalbelouz, ktaïef, samsa, dziriettes, etc.) usually savoured with some tea.
| Recipes |
Couscous: (for two persons)
Ingredients: 500 gr. of mutton meat, 1 onion, 3 carrots, 3 courgettes, 2 tomatoes, 1 ts of bottled tomatoes, 2 fists of chickpea dropped into water during 24 hours, 1/2 tea spoon (ts) of black pepper, 1ts of red pepper, 1 table spoon (Ts) of mixture of spices for red sauces, 1 cinnamon stick, ½ Ts of cooking salt, 2 Ts of soja oil, 2 Ts of s'men (local kind of butter) and 600 gr. of dry couscous.
Necessary utensils: A "Couscoussier" which consist of a skimmer, for the cooking of the couscous, and a sauce pan that contains the sauce and is placed under it while cooking. | Preparation of the sauce (Merqa):
Clean the onion and cut it into small pieces. Start cooking the meat with oil, 2 to 3 min, add then the black and red pepper, the cinnamon, and the spice mixture (ras el Hanout). Fill it up with about ½ l. of water, adding the chickpeas. Once, the meat and the chickpeas are cooked add the vegetables, cutted into small rectangular pieces of 4 cm, a Ts of s'men and 1Ts of tomatoes pure before the end of the cooking (approximately quarter an hour to 20 minutes.)
Preparation of the couscous:
While the sauce is cooking, place the dry couscous in a deep recipient with 1 or 2 glasses of water and let it swallow it during ¼ an hour. Separate the couscous's granes with your fingers so that it does not stick while cooking. Put it into the skimmer and let the sauce get evaporated throughout the couscous from 5 to 10 mn. Then, retrieve from the skimmer and drop the couscous into the deep recipient to let him breathe for 10 min. Once more add 1 or 2 glasses of water (depending on the quality of the couscous) and ½ ts of salt, let it absorb during ¼ an hour and separate the grane's once again delicately with the fingers, add the s'men and let it get evaporated during ¼ an hour to 20 minutes. Repeat the operation twice.
(nb: after the second cooking you can also add some olive oil / after the last one do not add water).
Presentation:
Presented appart the couscous is mixed in the plate with the sauce. Serve the couscous in a deep plate, pour an average ladle of sauce and decorate the middle of the dish with vegetables and pieces of meat.
Ch'titha djedj be zitoun
(pieces of chicken with an olive sauce /for two persons).
Ingredients: 2 chicken legs', 300 gr. of green olives (pitted), ½ onion, 2 garlic, 1 s of s'men, 1 egg, 2 ts of flour, 2 carrots, 1/2 ts saffron, fresh mince Persil, 1 ts salt, 1/2 ts of white pepper, ½ ts of nutmeg.
Preparation:
Rasp the onion in the sauce pan, add two clove of garlic. Add the chicken legs, the smen, the white pepper, the saffron, the salt and the nutmeg. Cook during 2 to 3 mn, add 1/5 litre of water, the carrots cut into circles and the olives already cooked into water during 20 mn to extract the bitterness (it is recomended to change the water at least twice). While the olives follow their cooking in the sauce, retrieve the chicken legs' and put them aside.In a deep plate mix:1 egg, salt, peper, nutmeg, some leaves of chopped parsley and the flour. Coat the chicken' legs with the mixture, cook in oil at low temperature and reserve.
Presentation:
Serve a chicken legs' in each plate, decorate with olives and carrots and a bit of unctuous sauce, then sprinkle some chopped parsley over it .
Taguela
Taguela is a typical dish from the southern part of algeria, the sahara. It is based on a thick pancare crambled served with several kinds of dressings. The pancake is traditionally cooked in the sand with wood embers, while the sauce is made with all you can find. Usualy you could compare it to the couscous one.
The Dough
1kilo of flour - ¼ liter of water - salt.
Mix the ingredients and knead the dough constantly in order to keep it flexible. Traditionnaly this operation was done in a "topsi", a large ceramic bol. At the same time you also have to make shure the fire is ready in order to receive the dought. Choose a part in the sand and clean it from all the wood embers, dig a place and pour the dough directly in the sand. Recover with sand and small wood embers and let it cook for 40 min (in the middle of the cooking, turn it). Before serving rince and make shure there is no sand remaining.
Sauce
The dressing is usually composed of herbs, mutton's bones, chicken, dry tomatos, onions, spices cooked in a stock.
Presentation:
Cramble the pancake and present it separetly from the sauce. In the plates serve the pieces of pancake with the sauce.
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