This past weekend we had our good friends Barb and Kevin over and we thought what better way to give them a taste of our Moroccan experience than to serve a variety of Moroccan delicacy’s that we learned how to make in our cooking classes. The hors d’œuvres for our Moroccan meal comes from our very first class in our Ryad Dar Les Cignones (The Storks – we had an old dilapidated palace across from the hotel where actual enormous storks made their nests!).
This is our lovely Chef at Dar Les Cignones
Our beautiful Chef (sadly, I cannot recall her name) at our Ryad showed us how to make these delicious pillows of Phyllo Pastry (which she actually made herself, although I won’t!) stuffed with a richly spiced shrimp mix. She did not give us a little printout like Maison MK did, so I had to go by memory and find a similar recipe on line and made some minor alterations. The photo below is the one taken with the iPhone4 with the flash at the Ryad. I tried to fix it a bit in Photoshop so it doesn’t look as cold and harsh. The funny story around the briouats is that the Chef specifically asked me if I wanted them deep fried or baked, and I opted for baked ‘pour la santé’ I said. And low and behold, we are served deep fried briouats! They were very tasty non-the-less!
Our baked Briouat with Dar Les Cignones Fried Briouat in the background
Baked Shrimp Briouats
Makes 26 5 cm (2 inch) triangles
Ingredients:
- 300 g shrimp, peel on
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
- Pinch of cayenne
- Large pinch of saffron threads, revived in a little water
- 1/4 cup fresh panko (or bread crumbs, I had panko)
- 5 sheets of phyllo dough
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Directions:
- Chop the shrimp into 1/2 cm bits, doesn’t have to be even or pretty.
- Heat a splash of oil in a pan and sauté the onions, add the shrimp and cook through.
- Add the garlic, tomato paste and spices and stir until you can smell the aroma.
- Remove from heat and add the panko, mix well.
- Allow to cool completely and add the fresh parsley and cilantro leaves. Mix well.
- Take 1 sheet of phyllo at a time, cut into 4-5cm strips. Drizzle with olive oil.
- Add about 1 tsp of the cooled filling to one end and fold tightly as shown in the diagram.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 ° F. Bake triangles for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Serve immediately or allow to cool and freeze.
Folding takes practice, make sure you have lots of phyllo on hand!
Baked Shrimp Briouat
Kitcheninspirations 