Rfissa is a traditional and delicious Moroccan chicken dish with lentils that is prepared for special occasions.
It’s an interesting dish to say the least, from afar you would think that it’s pasta dish of chicken sitting on a bed of Tagliatelle, but no, it’s actually shredded bread.
The dish itself is quite simple, marinating chicken in Ras El Hanout, turmeric, ginger powder and I had another opportunity to use some of the saffron I bought for the buns. Frying it off before adding some onions until softened. Then lentils and fenugreek are added with water and it’s left to reduce.
The bread base is made with flour enriched with semolina, which combined as two layers and stretched before frying. Separated and then shredded. Of course the sauce gets absorbed by the bread and makes it super delicious.
For a more detailed description of Rfissa, check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfissa
Ingredients
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Rfissa Ingredients
- Bread Base Ingredients
Instructions
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Marinate the chicken
- Mix the Ginger Powder, Turmeric, Ras El Hanout, Safran strands, Oil, some salt (1/2 tsp) and pepper.
- If not done already, cut the chicken in to large pieces, and marinate with the mixture made in the previous step, and leave in the fridge whilst preparing the bread. Making the bread
- Place flour, semolina and salt in a mixing bowl (I used my kitchen aid mixer for this). Then slowly add water whilst mixing until a dough is formed.
- Prepare either a large tray or flat bowl by adding some oil on the bottom surface. Divide the dough into balls about the size of a walnut, I found this to be around 30g each. Then place on to the tray, rolling it round to coat the outside with oil.
- Once divided, cover the tray with cling film (plastic wrap), and leave to rest for 30 minutes or so. Gives you the opportunity to have a rest for a bit :) Alternatively, if you're going to add boiled eggs, this would be your opportunity. For me, I put the on from cold, and time for 6 minutes once the water is boiling. After drawing the water and fill the pan with cold to stop further cooking.
- Pre-heat a frying pan on a medium-high heat.
- Next, add some more oil to a working surface, and taking two balls of dough at time, press each out carefully to a circle roughly about 10cm is diameter, then layer one on top of the other. Continue to slowly press out the dough to form a circle where the dough becomes translucent and is about the size of a frying pan. The technique is similar to making Smemen (a moroccan bread), but with the two layers, not folded, so you might want to check out the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t50V0P76IwE
- Add some oil to the pan, and lay in the circle of dough. The aim is not to make this crispy or dried out, you just want it to the point where the dough is cooked, slightly browned on each side but remaining flexible and stretchy.
- As you remove them from the pan, you want to pull the two layers apart so you get two separate discs again. If you've done everything technically right, it shouldn't be too difficult. I used tongs for this, because otherwise it's pretty hot.
- When the bread is cooled, you want to roll the discs up, and then slice at about the width of Tagliatelle and place in the bottom of a large serving dish. The chicken
- Slice the onions in preparation.
- Heat a large casserole dish, add the clarified butter, and then fry off the chicken until slightly golden.
- Add the onions and mix so that they get heated. Do this occasionally until all of the onions have softened, this will take about 10-15 minutes.
- Add lentils and fenugreek seeds, plus around 800ml - 1l of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the temperature to allow this to simmer. Allow water to reduce and form a sauce.
- (Personal step) - remove the chicken from the sauce to avoid breaking it as it should be deliciously tender. Then slowly mix in salt to taste. Then you can add back the chicken.
- Finally pour the chicken and sauce over the bread, garnish with some parsley and coriander. Enjoy :) If you made hard boiled eggs, then cut them in half and use to decorate.