Fricassees are a traditional dish from Tunisia. Marie makes them every now and then for me as a treat. They are the real Tunisian sandwich before modern health consciousness replaced the fried bread with baguettes. This is just the recipe for the bread. The filling is the same as in any Tunisian sandwich, i.e. tuna, Israeli salad, hummus, olives, capers, boiled eggs, and some optional stuff.
Fricassee - Traditional fried bread from Tunisia
Ingredients
- 10 grams active dried yeast
- 1/2 cup tepid water
- 400 grams flour
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons of oil
- a bit of salt
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Stir together yeast, water and 1 tablespoon of flour in a bowl.
- Leave until bubbly (about 10 minutes)
- Add in all other ingredients
- Mix together for five minutes
- Shape into small buns
- Leave to rise until doubled in size
- Deep fry in hot oil until golden
Notes
Yeast and water
The dough doesn’t leave the bowl until she has shaped the buns. So all kneading is in the same bowl.
Kneading in bowl
More kneading
More kneading
More kneading
The result of all that kneading is, of course, a dough ball.
Dough ball
Shaping the buns
Marie pinches off a piece of dough and shapes it into a fat sausage shape.
Shaping the buns
The recipes makes a lot of buns. In Israel Marie just has to leave them covered on the kitchen table and they will rise. Not so easy in the UK.
Leave buns to rise
Leave buns to rise
Leave buns to rise covered
Then fry the buns until golden. Marie does two or three at a time.
Fry the fricasee
Remove from oil and set aside
Assembling the Tunisian Sandwich is a team effort. We had a bit of a production line going on.
Fill the buns – bit of a production line going on here
Takes a while to fill the buns
But worth the effort. Delicious.
Tuck into Tunisian Sandwich inside a Fricasee
delicious and they came out perfect!!