Upside-Down Pear

Some years ago, one of my favorite restaurants, Road to Karakesh, closed down. Karakesh specialized in “cuisine from the spice road”, and among many other things, gave me my first taste of doro wat.

The one thing I missed terribly was brik à l’oeuf - thin pastry wrapped around tuna and an egg, fried and served with chili sauce. None of my cookbooks had a recipe, and I searched bookstores in vain for one that did.

Eventually, I searched online and found precisely one recipe, credited to Hayet Lehssairi. It now exists only in the Google cache, and I feel I must preserve it. So here it is, as originally written:

INGREDIENTS

For one brik per person
1 circle of filo pastry
1 egg
½ soup spoon of stuffing per person
Oil for frying

For the stuffing
150g lamb or veal (can also use tuna)
Salt and black pepper
2 soup spoons of finely chopped onion
1 glass water
4 soup spoons parsley, finely chopped
1 knob butter
Salt and black pepper

To make the stuffing, chop the meat, then season. Put into a pan with the onion and water and cook until the water has evaporated. Mince the meat, add the parsley and butter and warm together for two or three minutes.

To make the brik, take filo pastry circle and fold in the edges to form a square. Place half a soup spoon of stuffing into its centre, together with a raw egg. Fold one corner of the square to the opposite corner and seal edges. Slide into hot oil and spoon oil over the brik until it swells and turns golden. Serve hot with the egg still runny.

Hayet Lehssairi

This morning, I stared unhappily at my crepe recipe, not wanting crepes, but unsure what I did want. “Brik,” said my back brain. “You want brik.”

And so I did. Here is my version of Hayet Lehssairi’s brik recipe, adapted for what I had in my house, and for more standard measurements.

Makes 2 large briks.

For each brik:
1 spring roll wrapper
1 egg
½ stuffing
Safflower oil for frying
Chili garlic sauce (I keep the Huy Fong “rooster” chili garlic sauce around).

For the stuffing:
1 can chunk light tuna, preferably unsalted
Salt and black pepper
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp water
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tbsp unsalted butter

Melt the butter in a sautee pan. Add the drained can of tuna, the onion, and the water, and cook until the water has evaporated. Add black pepper, salt, and the parsley, and stir to combine. Turn off the heat.

Heat the safflower oil in a Dutch oven on the stovetop. You will want about 3/4 of an inch of oil in the bottom of the pan, maybe less.

Crack 1 egg over a bowl, and let the runny part of the white run out (you can crack it into your hand and let it run through your fingers, or crack it in half and let it drip out of the shell). The original recipe needs very fresh eggs, which have a solid white; the runny white of not-so-fresh eggs is No Good and will ruin your brik.

Lay your spring roll wrapper out on a flat surface, and brush the edges with water. Place half the stuffing in the center, and your de-runnified egg on top. Fold diagonally, then brush the tops of the fold and fold them over themselves to form a nice tight seal.

Slide into hot oil and spoon oil over the brik until it puffs up nicely and the edges are golden brown. Carefully turn it over (I used a spider) to brown the top. Drain on paper towels or brown paper bags for a few minutes, then serve with chili garlic sauce.

Unholy good, and a delicious breakfast, lunch, or make 2 per person for dinner.

Next time I make it, I’m going to add a teaspoon of capers to the filling; Karakesh’s version had them, and I think they’d play nicely in this one.