National Dishes of the World

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Pastilla
Photo: kochtopf, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Pastilla

بسطيلة (bastila)

A round pie of paper-thin pastry filled with chicken, eggs and almonds, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon.

Eaten in: Morocco

Prep
45 min
Cooking
1 h 30 min
Total
2 h 15 min
Servings
6

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About the dish

Pastilla is a festive pie where sweet meets savoury. Several layers of paper-thin warqa pastry enclose a filling of chicken braised with onion, saffron and cinnamon, eggs set in the sauce and toasted almonds with sugar. The top is dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon in a lattice pattern. It was traditionally made with pigeon, which is still done for special occasions; a seafood version without sugar is popular too. Pastilla opens weddings and family celebrations.

Main ingredients

  • warqa or filo pastry
  • chicken
  • eggs
  • almonds
  • onion
  • cinnamon
  • icing sugar

Morocco: Especially associated with Fez; also pronounced bastila.

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Pastilla

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/pastilla

Ingredients

6 servings

6 servings

Method

  1. Braise the chicken with the chopped onions, herbs, spices, oil and 250 ml water, covered, for about 45 minutes.

  2. Lift out the meat, strip it from the bones and shred it, then reduce the sauce to about 250 ml.

  3. Pour the beaten eggs into the sauce and stir over low heat until they set into soft curds; let cool.

  4. Toast the almonds in a dry pan and grind them coarsely with 3 tbsp icing sugar and the cinnamon.

  5. Line a round tin with 6 buttered pastry sheets, letting them overhang, and layer in the eggs, chicken and almonds.

  6. Fold over the overhanging pastry, cover with the remaining buttered sheets and tuck them underneath.

  7. Bake at 190°C for about 30 minutes until golden, dust with icing sugar and cinnamon and serve warm.

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