Mahjouba Semolina Crêpe

Name: Mahjouba Semolina Crêpe
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: Makes 8 crêpes
Cuisine: Algerian
Ingredients: 250 g fine semolina; 100 g all-purpose flour; ½ tsp salt; 300 ml warm water (approximately); 1 tbsp olive oil; 3 tbsp olive oil (about 40 g); 2 onions (about 300 g), sliced thin; 4 ripe tomatoes (about 400 g), grated or diced; 1 green chili, minced; 2 cloves garlic (about 8 g), grated; 1 tsp cumin; ½ tsp sweet paprika; ½ tsp salt; A handful coriander (about 10 g), chopped at the end; A flat pan or griddle; olive oil for brushing; more coriander and a dash of harissa (#91) to serve

Algerian · Medium · Makes 8 crêpes

Mahjouba is the Algerian morning's constant: a soft semolina crêpe folded around a slow-cooked tomato-and-onion confit, eaten by hand, three to a laborer, from carts where the griddle never cools. The bread is the craft — a fine semolina dough, rested and stretched thin — and the filling is the pantry's gentlest argument: tomatoes cooked down with onion and pepper until sweet, with nothing to assert but themselves.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The dough

The filling (the dersa-scented confit)

The griddle

- **Rest the dough a full hour — semolina demands it.** The dough should rest covered and relaxed; semolina's coarser grain hydrates slowly, and a rushed dough tears at the stretch. The rest is the difference between a crêpe and a casualty. - **Cook the filling down properly — 25 minutes at least.** The confit is not a sauce: the tomatoes and onions cook in olive oil until they collapse into a sweet, spoonable jam, the water gone, the oil glistening through. This slow down is the filling's whole character.

Step 1. **Make and rest the dough.** Mix the semolina, flour, salt, and water to a soft, slightly tacky dough; knead 5 minutes with oiled hands until smooth; rest, covered, 1 hour. Checkpoint — the rested dough should be supple and calm — it stretches when pulled and holds, without springing back. Divide into 8 balls and keep them covered as you work.

Step 2. **Cook the confit (25–30 minutes).** Soften the onions in the oil over medium-low — 8 minutes, patient — then add the tomatoes, garlic, chili, and spices, and cook at a bare bubble 20 minutes more, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick, darkened, and the oil separates at the edges. Season, fold in the coriander, cool slightly. Checkpoint — the filling should mound on a spoon and taste intensely sweet-savory — the tomatoes' jam against the onions' silk, cumin warm beneath. If it tastes fresh or sharp, it has not cooked long enough.

Step 3. **Roll, fill, fold (one at a time).** Roll a dough ball to a thin 20 cm round — as thin as it will go without tearing; a spoonful of the confit spread over the center, and fold the four sides over into a neat square packet. Flatten gently. Checkpoint — the packet should be flat and full — the filling a layer, not a lump — and the dough sealed enough to hold it through the griddle's turn.

Step 4. **Griddle to gold (3–4 minutes a side).** Cook the packets on a lightly oiled griddle over medium — 3 to 4 minutes a side, until both faces carry golden brown freckles and the filling warms through, pressing lightly with a spatula. Checkpoint — eating test: the crêpe's soft, faintly chew of semolina, the confit's sweet tomato-onion within — a gentle, complete, hand-held meal — with the coriander's green and the optional harissa's fire turning it from breakfast to argument. It should eat like the morning itself: unhurried, warm, folded. Chef’s Note — mahjouba and the brik (#1) are the two Algerian-Tunisian poles of the stuffed-flatbread canon: brik's shatter against mahjouba's soft fold, and both wrapped around the same region's trinity of tomato, onion, and egg-or-tuna. The semolina dough is mahjouba's distinction — its slight grain and chew are why it satisfies as a meal rather than a snack — and it is the same semolina patience the couscous (#34) demands at grander scale: the grain needs its time.