Haratin

Mauritanian Couscous

Barley or millet couscous with camel or mutton, coarser and less vegetable-heavy than its Maghrebi cousins. Mauritania joined the four-country UNESCO couscous listing in 2020.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Chebujin

also Thieboudienne

Fish and rice cooked in tomato with stuffed fish and vegetables, shared with Senegal across the river. Mauritania's version leans drier and is eaten from a communal platter with the right hand.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Méchoui

Whole lamb or goat roasted over embers or in a pit, cut up and eaten in the hand with salt and cumin. The desert celebration food, and the standard way of honouring a guest.

Serves 10 or more · 4 hours

Lakhchef

also Mauritanian pancake

A thin sorghum or wheat pancake cooked on one side until it is full of holes, eaten at breakfast with butter, honey or a meat sauce.

Serves Makes 10 · 40 minutes, plus overnight fermenting

Marou we Laham

Rice with meat, cooked in one pot and served on a wide communal platter. The plain name is accurate: this is the dish put out when a family has guests and wants everyone to eat well.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Hakko

A Haalpulaar dish of the Senegal river valley: leaf sauce over millet couscous, thickened and soured, eaten in the villages of the south where the millet is grown.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Zrig

Camel or goat milk thinned with water and sweetened, drunk cold across the Sahara. It is what a herder offers on arrival and the first thing given to a traveller who has come far.

Serves 4 · 10 minutes

Khobz

Round semolina and flour loaves baked daily, often carried to a communal neighbourhood oven and collected again with the family mark still on them. Bread is the utensil at a Moroccan table.

Serves Makes 2 loaves · 2 hours

Tagine of Lamb with Prunes

also Lham bel barkouk

Lamb cooked slowly in a conical earthenware pot with prunes, cinnamon and honey, finished with sesame and almonds. The sweet-savoury balance is the signature of Moroccan festive cooking.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Msemen

Square laminated flatbreads, folded around butter and semolina and griddled until layered and crisp. Sold at breakfast stalls and eaten with honey, amlou or simply torn into mint tea.

Serves Makes 8 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Bissara

also Broad bean soup, Bessara

Dried broad beans cooked to a thick purée with garlic and cumin, finished with a slick of olive oil and paprika. Morocco's winter breakfast, sold from carts before dawn.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Pastilla

also Bstilla, B'stilla

Pigeon or chicken and almonds in warqa pastry, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. Served at weddings as the first course, and the clearest survival of Andalusian cooking in Morocco.

Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Rfissa

also Trid, Rfissa bel djaj

Chicken cooked with lentils and fenugreek in ras el hanout, served over torn msemen or trid pastry that soaks up the broth. Cooked in Morocco for a woman who has just given birth.

Serves 8 · 2 hours

Sellou

also Sfouf, Slilou

Toasted flour, almonds and sesame bound with butter and honey into a dense unbaked sweet, made for Ramadan and for new mothers and kept for weeks.

Serves 12 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Harira

Tomato, lentil and chickpea soup thickened with a flour and water tedouira, eaten to break the fast every evening of Ramadan, usually with dates and chebakia alongside.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Amlou

Argan oil, roasted almonds and honey ground to a thick spread, from the Souss where the argan tree grows and nowhere else. Eaten at breakfast with bread and mint tea.

Serves Makes 1 jar · 30 minutes

Couscous

also Seksu, Kesksu

Steamed semolina under a vegetable and lamb broth, eaten on Fridays and at every family occasion. UNESCO listed it in 2020 as shared heritage of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania, after the four countries filed jointly rather than fight over it.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Chakhchouka

also Chakhchoukha Biskria

Torn flatbread soaked in a tomato and lamb stew, from the Aurès and Biskra. The bread is made specifically to be shredded, and the dish is the centrepiece of large family gatherings across the east.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Mhadjeb

also Mahjouba

Thin semolina crêpes folded around a slow-cooked tomato, onion and pepper filling, griddled and sold from carts and hole-in-the-wall counters all over Algiers, especially through Ramadan.

Serves Makes 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Bourek

also Brik algérien, Bourek annabi

Cigars of dioul pastry filled with minced meat, onion and egg and fried crisp, the first thing on the Algerian table at every iftar.

Serves Makes about 20 · 1 hour

Rechta

Hand-cut steamed noodles in a pale cinnamon and turnip broth with chicken, made in Algiers and Tlemcen for the Prophet's birthday and for Eid. The whiteness of the sauce is the point: no tomato is allowed near it.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Tajine Zitoune

also Olive tagine, Chicken with olives

Chicken and meatballs braised in a white lemon and olive sauce with carrots and mushrooms, the Algerois wedding dish, quite different from the Moroccan tagine.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Chorba Frik

Lamb soup thickened with freekeh, green wheat harvested young and roasted. It breaks the fast in Algerian households every night of Ramadan, and the smell of it carries down whole streets at sunset.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Mint Tea

also Atay, Thé à la menthe

Green tea with spearmint and a great deal of sugar, poured from height to raise a head of foam. Refusing the second glass is possible; refusing the first is not.

Serves 4 glasses · 15 minutes