Cookfolio

Ingredients Filling
200gr minced beef
1 onion
1 tbs olive oil
1 beef cube
1 teaspoon tabil
fresh ground black pepper to taste
fresh coriander leaves

Method
Fry off onion in the olive oil, add the minced beef and brown off the meat. Add the rest of the ingredients and leave to cool. Make a quantity of the Msmen mix. After flattening the msmen ball place a small portion of the meat filling in the centre. Fold the msmen and dry cook the bread until done.

There is a big Moroccan community in The Netherlands and during the Ramadan the Moroccan stores sell delicious cakes and pastries. These stores are usually Butcher shops and are more like mini supermarkets selling all sorts of Arabic treats, but mostly North African goods.

After years of only buying Msmen during the Ramadan, following several cooking disasters a friend taught me how to make Msmen the right way. A lot of recipes I found online listed dried yeast, but she stated ‘yeast is for people who cannot cook’. It might take several failures to get a good understanding of how to make and cook Msmen but once you figure it out you will be able to make these with out looking up the recipe every again!

Ingredients
250 gr flour
250 gr semolina flour (finely ground)
extra 50 gr semolina flour
luke warm water
salt
250 gr butter
sunflower oil

Method
Melt the butter in a pan, add some sunflower oil and put aside until later. Mix the flour, semolina and salt together in a big mixing bowl, add water slowly. Work the dough kneading it for at least 5 mins. or until it becomes elastic. Pinch small balls out, dipping in the butter and put aside, this will prevent the dough from drying out.

Make sure you have enough room to work, a big surface to flatten out the dough. Put a spoonful of the melted butter on your work surface and grab a ball. Flatten it with the palm of your hand and add another spoonful of butter on top. Now slowly flatten the dough out with a circling palm action until it’s stretched out and thin.

Sprinkle a light layer of semolina over the circle. Fold the top part of the dough over 2/3 of the circle, then fold the botton 1/3 up and then fold both sides in, it’s sort of like a envelop.

Before cooking the Msmen it needs to be flattened, heat a frying pan on a medium heat, and cook the Msmen using no extra oil. Turn over when the Msmen has turned light brown. Repeat for all of the balls and serve warm with small dipping balls of olive oil and honey.