How to Make Tunisian Burik

Mara: Now, before we joined Naimi’s friends back in the dining room, we’ve got one more dish to make and it is going to incorporate all of the flavors of Tunisia. Okay, Naimi what is this dish called?

Naimi: This is called Burik.

Mara: Burik.

Naimi: Yes. It is from, the Ottoman Empire that cross Tunisia and left this beautiful and fantastic delicious burik.

Mara: A trail of good flavors.

Naimi: Yes. This is composed with olives and Tunisia has 38 types of olives, 10 Millions trees.

Mara: 10 million olive trees. Now, tell me does each family in Tunisia tend to have their own olive tree?

Naimi: Yes, we do have one in the garden and we are in the city.

Mara: Oh that’s amazing.

Naimi: This is a tuna and this is the belly tuna, the best it’s Mediterranean, it’s in the olive oil and it’s one of the composition of the burik and the secret of the taste.

Mara: A secret, all right.

Naimi: This parmejano and this is a little influence of Mediterranean, Roman you know it’s very close to Sicily of course.

Mara: It’s just right across the water.

Naimi: This is caper and this is the eggs, so this space is done magically we call it because it is done home and it’s very thin.

Mara: What is that made out of?

Naimi: Flour, salt.

Mara: So, it’s like a crate.

Naimi: Yes. But it’s more and more sensitive and delicious. So, we’re going to prepare. It’s very easy. You just take your cheese, put some. Sorry my hands are clean.

Mara: Is this going to melt or is this to help have it be cohesive or is this just for flavor?

Naimi: No, it’s just to mix up the taste and embrace it and become like a marriage of taste, we call it. We will put some olives around also for the taste, it’s different.

Mara: It’s got a skewered salty flavor base.

Naimi: Yes, at the same time yes and we have some caper that we put around. The traditional of Ramadan on every table in Ramadan in Tunis have brick table.

Mara: A blade.

Naimi: Yes, definitely, yes.

Mara: Oh this is so special.

Naimi: And everybody loves it and you’re going to love it also. I hope that you will enjoy it when it is ready.

Mara: It’s a kind of like a salad misua without the lettuce.

Naimi: Yeah something like yes.

Mara: A little bit, it has—

Naimi: It is closer to crack.

Mara: Yes, it is a like a salad misua with a crape and it’s got that great sort of sea flavor from the sea, when you crack a raw egg right on top of it.

Naimi: Yes, close it, it’s called the half circle.

Mara: A half circle. So now, we bring it over to the stove and we’re going to fry it up.

Naimi: It’s very simple, it takes two seconds to fry.

Mara: That looks delicious. It’s like a big old wanton crate misua.

Naimi: Yes.

Mara: So, just make it like a nice golden brown.

Naimi: It has to have the gold color and the egg does cook right away, everything is cooked and you don’t need to cook it.

Mara: We are going to go and take this break over to your friends and start from them all I cannot wait.