Hand-sized pastry turnovers filled with raw diced beef, potato, rutabaga and onion, baked until the crust is golden and the filling is tender. Brought to Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Cornish miners, the pasty became a local staple and is eaten by hand, hot or cold, with ketchup or gravy.
Tender lamb and a generous mix of vegetables simmered in a fragrant broth, piled over mounds of steamed couscous. Known in Morocco as couscous bidaoui, the Casablanca style, this is the dish of the Friday family meal, served on a large communal platter.
Ground beef worked with crushed rice, onion, and herbs, shaped into small meatballs, fried until golden, then simmered gently in a fresh tomato sauce. Known in Egypt as koftet rozz (rice kofta), this is a staple of everyday Egyptian cooking and a particular favorite during Ramadan, when it's often served with a side of fried rice.
One of Morocco's great sweet-savory dishes: lamb simmered slowly with prunes, cinnamon, and honey until it turns almost jammy, finished with a scattering of golden fried almonds. This home-style version is a simplified take on mrouzia (m'rouzia), the festive tagine traditionally prepared for Eid al-Adha with leftover mutton from the sacrifice. Grander versions lean on ras el hanout and saffron, but everyday home cooking often pares the spicing down to cinnamon alone, as it is here.
Kefta briouats, also known as briouates de kefta, are small, crisp Moroccan pastries built around seasoned ground meat — usually beef or lamb — wrapped in paper-thin warqa pastry and folded into tight triangles before frying until deeply golden. They're a fixture of Moroccan appetizer spreads and Ramadan tables, most often served simply, though one distinctive regional style finishes them with a dusting of cinnamon and powdered sugar for a sweet-savory contrast.
Pastilla — also spelled bastilla, pronounced that way in Morocco since Arabic has no "p" sound — is one of the country's most celebrated dishes: a round pie of paper-thin warqa or phyllo pastry wrapped around a richly spiced chicken and egg filling, topped with almonds, and finished with a dusting of cinnamon and powdered sugar for a striking sweet-and-savory contrast. It was traditionally made with pigeon; chicken is now the everyday substitute almost everywhere outside Morocco's most traditional kitchens.
Lamb spleen stuffed with a fragrant rice pilaf of pine nuts, currants, ground meat and warm spices, then roasted until deeply browned — an Anatolian offal specialty from Manisa.
