Date Syrup and Sesame Paste: Tahina u Robb طحينة و رُب

Some foods are just made for each other - as every Libyan knows, tuna and harissa go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly. Tahina (sesame paste)and Robb (date syrup) are the Arab version of PB&J, making a perfect quick high-energy snack when scooped up with or spread on warm flat bread. You can mix them together in one bowl or dip the bread alternately in the sweet Robb and nutty Tahini. Either way, Tahina and Robb go together perfectly.

Arabic Boiled Flour Pudding: Asida العصيدة

Asida is a boiled flour pudding cooked directly in water. It is a popular traditional dish served in Libya during celebrations such as births or Eid. It is made of wheat flour or whole-meal flour dough cooked in water, and is eaten with honey or date syrup and melted butter. Some people use olive oil or samn (ghee) instead of butter. It is usually eaten for breakfast. Like bazeen, asida is a communal meal served in a large flat plate or gas'a, and it is generally eaten with the fingers, although spoons can be used. While Bazeen has Amazigh origins and is a purely North African dish, this boiled flour pudding has an Arabic name and versions of Asida are made in the Arabian Peninsula.

Take a look at the steps for the smiley face asida for children. 

Ingredients
Serves 4

25g butter
1tsp salt
300g flour
1 litre boiling water

Served with:
Honey or date syrup
Melted butter or ghee

Fill a deep pot with 1/2 litre hot water. Add 25g butter and a teaspoon of salt.

Leave on medium heat until the water starts to boil.

Sift the flour then pour it into the pan all at once then remove from heat.

Immediately start to stir the flour into the buttery water.

Press the dough against the side of the pot to remove lumps. 

Once the dough is smooth, with the help of the wooden spoon form it into one lump.

Put the pot back on the heat and add another half liter of boiling water.

Use the wooden spoon to form some hollows in the dough. Do not cover and leave to cook on low heat until the water is absorbed.  Midway during this process, turn the lump upside down.The dough's cooking takes about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Immediately begin kneading, using a wooden spoon to smooth the asida. If you have a machine that will knead bread dough then it will handle asida fine. 

Melt about 75g of butter or samn (ghee).

Brush a wide plate with butter.

Place the asida in the center and begin folding in the edges to form a smooth dome.

Once the edges are folded in, roll the asida to even out any cracks.

Turn upside down and use a buttered ladle to form a hollow in the asida.

Pour the melted butter or ghee around the asida.

Pour honey or date syrup in the hollow. Serve immediately.

Children's Smiley Face Asida عصيدة للاطفال

This is a variation of asida for children, with a smiley face. Asida is a popular traditional dish served in Libya during celebrations such as births or Eid. It is made of wheat flour or whole-meal flour dough cooked in water, and is eaten with honey or date syrup and melted butter. Some people use olive oil or samn (ghee) instead of butter. Asida is usually eaten for breakfast, as a form of porridge. While most children love asida in any form, this makes it a lot more fun for the younger ones, who can help you with creating and decorating the smiley face. For the ingredients and steps to make the asida, see this link.

Put a small amount  of asida dough in a small bowl and press it down with the back of a spoon to form a smooth dome as above, then turn it upside down on a flat plat.

Use a circular object to make two deep hollows for the "eyes."

Use a spoon to form a curved line for the "smile". 

Pour honey or date syrup into the eyes. You could also sprinkle sugar in the "smile." Pour melted butter around the asida. Serve immediately with a glass of cold milk.

Eggs with Chard: Silq bil Dahi سلق بالدحي

Silq bil dahi is a breakfast or supper dish of sautéed chard with fried eggs drizzled with lemon juice and oilve oil. It's a simple quick meal making it  a popular choice for the pre-dawn suhoor in Ramadan.

Ingredients
3 eggs
10-15 chard leaves
Olive oil
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Wash the chard, lay the leaves on top of each other and chop width-ways into broad strips. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, add the chard and stir occasionally.

When the chard has cooked push aside to make spaces in the pan, then crack the eggs into the 'holes'.

Cook until the eggs have set, then turn off the heat and cover. Leave for a few minutes to finish cooking. 

Salt and pepper to taste , drizzle with olive oil and lots of lemon juice and serve with hot flat bread.

Libyan stove top flat bread: Ftat Misrati فتات مصراتى

Ftat is a thin flat-bread, made of a simple mix of flour and water and cooked on a hot flat surface. This is the Ftat recipe from the Western city of Misurata. An ingenious technique makes them twice as thin with half the effort: a mixture of cornflour and olive oil is used to 'sandwich' two pieces of ftat dough, the sandwich is thinned as much as possible and then cooked, the heat separating out the two pieces of Ftat.

Ftat literally means small pieces, and this bread is often torn up and covered with different soups or stews, to make a variety of fatta meals. Every Arab country has multiple Tharid or Fatta dishes using torn up bread as a base. In the South of the country Fatta dishes are made with leavened Tanoor bread, while the East of Libya has a bread so thin its transparent, which is used to make Mathruda (a sweet-and-sour fatta with meat and dates). Ftat is specially suited for Fatta meals as it holds up well.

Ftat are not always torn up! They are also enjoyed whole with different fillings, the most popular being Ejja (thick omlettes, the Arabic for Frittata/Tortilla). A slice of spicy herb and potato Ejja wrapped in Ftat is the perfect combination, and is especially popular in Ramadan. Plain Ftat are also served with tea alongside other kinds of Libyan bread.

Makes about 20 Ftat

Ingredients

Dough

750g fine flour

1/2 litre water (you may need more)

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon salt


more olive oil to brush the dough  

Paste

5-6 tablespoons cornflour (you need a smooth thick consistency)

50 ml olive oil 

For the dough, combine the flour, salt and olive oil and gradually add water till you have a soft but not sticky dough. Knead well, smooth olive oil over the dough then cover with cling film. Leave to rest for at least an hour. 

 Add olive oil to the cornflour for the paste. 

Mix the cornflour and olive oil to a smooth paste, leave for 10 minutes and it should thicken, add more cornflour if needed. 

After having left the dough to rest, knead again and then, keeping your hands well-oiled, take a piece of dough and squeeze your fist around it to form balls about the size of a ping-pong ball. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for half an hour. Flatten the balls by hand, not to thin them out but just to get a larger surface area. Now spread about one teaspoon of the cornflour paste thinly on one piece and cover with the second. do the same for the other pieces.

Cover and leave to rest for at least another hour. Pinch the edges of the sandwich, trapping the paste inside.

The sandwich should now have a little raised dome in the centre, with the paste in it.

Start spreading the ftat out. You can use a dinner plate and your hands. This helps you keep the round shape. Oil a large dinner plate, place a ftat 'sandwich' in the centre, brush with olive oil and using the fingers of one hand stretch and spread out gently to form the shape above.

Place the ftat on a hot surface to cook, using only medium heat. A hot flatplate (e.g pizza maker) is ideal, but really any old frying pan is fine as you can see above.

Turn after few second then sprinkle or brush the upper surface with olive oil. Once cooked the ftat will seperate easily into two, turn each one of these ftat pieces uncooked side downward for a few seconds, each (seperately)

Then place both back in the pan in the position above to sear the edges. It is important to wrap fatat in towel as soon as you remove it from the pan to keep it soft and warm. Fatat must be eaten warm, whether freshly made or warmed up in a frying pan just before serving. They keep best wrapped in foil in the fridge. It can be stored for one week in the fridge in an airtight container.

Libyan Dougnut: Sfinz (سفنز (معجنات مقلية

Sfinz are usually served for Friday breakfasts. Sfinz is a spongy fried bread that can be made plain and eaten with sweet toppings like date molasses and honey, or else fried with an egg. Sfinz doughnuts are also served with afternoon tea. This amount makes about 10-12 sfinz. A great way to use leftover sfinz dough is to bake herb bread.

Makes 10-12 Sfinz
Ingredients
4 cups fine white flour
4 tablespoons olive oil for the dough
4 teaspoons sugar 

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoon baking powder
One cup warm milk and 1/2 cup warm water (or one and a half cups warm water)
1/2 cup warm water for the yeast
(25g fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon dried yeast + 1 teaspoon sugar)
corn oil for deep frying

To Serve:
Qashta cream
Date syrup
Honey
Kiri cheese

 In a small bowl mix the fresh yeast and sugar, with 1/2 cup warm water, leave in warm place until it becomes frothy

                     Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add the yeast  mix.

Add the olive oil and one and a half cup warm water gradually.  Knead well to get a soft consistency dough, which will be easy to spread by hand later. The sfinz dough is soft and sticky dough, so you need well oiled hands to work with it.

Oil your hands, then shape the dough into a large ball and brush it with oil. Cover with a cling film, and leave until the dough has risen, it should be treble its original volume. (Most convenient is to leave it overnight and finish making the Sfinz the next morning)

Knead the dough again so it falls, then leave to rise again. Next we will start to shape the dough.

Oil a tray, and with oiled hands take a handful of dough and squeeze into large egg size, making about 10 sfinz balls. Place the balls on a well oiled surface and cover them with cling film. Leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Oil a dinner plate. put one dough ball in the middle of the plate. Flatten each ball to the same shape as the plate, dipping your hands in oil as needed. The edges should be a bit thicker than the center, like a pizza crust.

Fry in hot oil. If you are making plain sfinz just fry, turn to the other side until both sides are golden brown.

When you fry sfinz, the top side of the sfinz will pop up as soon as it placed in oil. To make egg sfinz flip the sfinz onto the opposite side as soon as it pops up. This side will have a " hollow." You should have an egg in a bowl ready to pour into the hollow.

Push the sfinz down with a spatula and spoon hot oil on top to fry the egg as well. Once the egg has set you can flip to brown the egg side.

Egg sfinz are great rolled up with a slice of cheese, or just plain, and the egg can be hard or runny.

Drizzle plain sfinz with date molasses, or tear off pieces to scoop up Qashta cream or Kiri cheese and honey.

Sfinz is best eaten as soon as possible after frying, but warms up well in the microwave. It also keeps for a day or two in the fridge if stored in an airtight container.