A few weeks ago, I taught a fresh pasta class. I included a semolina egg pasta recipe. The students in the class had never seen semolina flour before, even though all of them had eaten plenty of dried pasta all their lives.
Under Italian law, pasta secca (dry pasta) can only be made with durum wheat flour or durum wheat semolina. This is the same flour used to make semolina couscous. In fact, an Italian mill is a major supplier of semolina to Algeria's SIM couscous company, the world's second largest couscous manufacturer.
Leftover couscous is often eaten for breakfast with a little sugar and raisins or currants and a glass of lben (buttermilk or kefir). If you think about it, this isn't different from having semolina porridge, cream of wheat, grits or polenta for breakfast. Except that breakfast couscous is not cooked down into gruel.
Brik is a common street food breakfast dish in Algeria and Tunisia. The gossamer thin pastry sheets are made from a semolina based dough. The result is a delicate, crackling crisp fried pastry that is unlike any other pastry in the world.
Common breakfast dishes are semolina pancakes or crepes drizzled with honey, called baghrir or ghraif.
Layered semolina flatbread or melloui (similar to a paratha)
And quick semolina bread (harsha) often perfumed with anise seeds or orange zest. Harsha can be baked in the bottom of a flameware tagine (you guessed it). Traditionally, harsha is also made as griddle cakes. Baked harsha is a bit like cornbread, but milder in flavor and more tender. In fact, some traditional North African harsha recipes are made with cornmeal. Prepared as griddle cakes, well, they are basically pancakes.
American home cooks might want to experiement with different flavors for baked harsha. It would delicious with poppy seeds and lemon zest for example. Or brushed with blood orange syrup.
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