That Translator Can Cook: Brik

A triangular pastry stuffed with tuna, potato, soft cheese, and an egg, seasoned with onion, garlic, and cilantro

Photo by: Rafram Chaddad Boaz

In Tunisia, brik is one of those feel-good foods that provoke nostalgia. For one person, brik reminds them of their grandmother and the way they bobbed in the oil while she cooked them.  Many people in Tunisia eat brik when they break their fast during Ramadan.

Brik is a Tunisian variant of the Turkish börek, which is believed to be its predecessor brought to North Africa by the Ottoman Empire. Its cousin, the Algerian bourek, maintains the same style: thin, flaky pastry wrapped around something delicious, but with a different filling. Each region has a different way of stuffing and rolling this snack: brik in southern Tunisia is distinguished by a harissa and potato filling, while brik in northern Tunisia is distinguish by a tuna and egg filling.

Brik was introduced to Israel by Tunisian Jewish immigrants and it’s very popular there. Some claim that Tunisian or Libyan Jews invented this delicious snack, but I did not find evidence to support that claim.

Regardless of where brik originated from, it looks delicious and after substituting the soft cheese for something I can safely digest, I am definitely trying this. The egg is usually cooked just enough so that the yoke is runny, but for those of us who prefer a hard yolk, I’m not sure how that would affect the taste and texture. I will also be translating a recipe for bourek later because even though they have the same origin, they are made differently and have different tastes. And who doesn’t love fried pastry?

Here is how you make brik; the recipe and pictures belong to Waseem and Joury’s mother (أم وسيم وجوري).

Ingredients

• Dioul or khatfa pastry wrappers

• 1 medium onion

• 2 cloves of garlic

• Oil and ghee

• Cilantro

• 3 cans of tuna

• Black olives to taste

• Soft cheese (i.e. fromage) to taste

• 1.5 kilos of boiled potatoes

• Salt and black pepper to taste

• 1 teaspoon of cumin and ginger

• 10 eggs, depending on the number of people you are cooking for

Instructions

Put the desired amount of oil and ghee in a pan with the onion, garlic, and spices and sauté them well. Remove from heat and add the tuna, black olives, and minced cilantro. Next, put the potatoes on to boil and mash them with a fork. Next, season them evenly with the salt, black pepper, cumin, ginger, and cilantro, and mix well.

Take out the pastry wrappers and spread cheese (fromage), form a circle with the stuffing, and break the eggs [within them]. Sprinkle salt on them and fold them into squares. Fry them in a pan on low heat until the eggs are cooked however much you like on the inside: how you like it may be different from how I like it.

Translators’ Discussion:

1. Tunisian pastry sheets/wrappers are usually called malsouka (ملسوقة‎), but I’ve found that dioul (ديول) and khatfa (خطفة) are also used. I’m not sure if these are brand names or variants of malsouka. Can anybody shed some light on this?

2. More and more I’m tempted to learn French, so I won’t be tortured when translating Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan documents. There were French words transliterated to Arabic sprinkled throughout the recipe: فرشيطة (fourchette), فرماج (fromage), etc…

3. A colleague and I both agreed on the translation of the last sentence, but also agreed that the source text was confusing. How would you translate this sentence? ونحطها في المقلاة النقص فالنار باش الطيب البيضة من الداخل للي يحبها طايبة وانت واش تحبي