Opinion – Recipes from Marcão: Tunisian pasta is a mixture of Italy and Egypt

I still haven’t fully assimilated the idea of ​​a World Cup without Italy. For two reasons. The first is football, obviously: in half a century of World Cups, I’ve never seen a World Cup without Azurra.

The other reason is that I proposed to publish in this space a recipe from each selection of the Cup, and no panorama of global cuisine is complete without pasta. It couldn’t stay like this.

Then I discovered that Tunisia, an Arab nation in North Africa, is the country with the second highest consumption of pasta per head in the world — the unbeatable champion is Italy.

It makes perfect sense: in a straight line, the Tunisian coast is about 80 kilometers from the Italian island of Pantelleria. The exchange is intense.

Tunisian families eat something similar to Brazilian pasta, pasta with a tomato stew and some kind of meat.

The most common are lamb and chicken, but they are also made with beef, fish and shrimp. Pork, being a Muslim-majority country, is not on the menu — no one forbids you to use it, but it won’t be very authentic.

In addition, Tunisian pasta — the so-called makrouna — is a mixture of Italian cuisine with that of Arab countries, such as Morocco and Egypt. It takes a lot of spices that, in those parts, are already mixed in formulas (harissa and ras-el-hanout are two types).

You can even find and pay dearly for these mixtures in some cities in Brazil; the most sensible thing, however, is to mix in things like coriander seed, cumin, paprika, and pepper.

It is also common to add chickpeas and/or peas to the sauce. The pasta used can be spaghetti or whatever is on hand, even small, short noodles for soup.

Remember that each meat has a cooking time. I used chicken thigh, which is ready quickly, but other types (beef muscle, for example) may require more time in the fire.

Makrouna

Yield: 2 servings

Difficulty: easy

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons of oil.

100 g of breast fillet or chicken thigh, in cubes.

3 minced garlic cloves.

1 bay leaf.

1 tablespoon of turmeric.

1 tablespoon of paprika.

1 tablespoon of cumin powder.

1 tablespoon of coriander powder.

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

1 teaspoon of black pepper.

1 can of peeled tomatoes.

100 g of cooked chickpeas.

250 g of pasta.

2 roasted or toasted green peppers.

WAY OF DOING

1. Heat the oil and brown the chicken pieces. Reserve.
2. In the same oil, sauté the garlic with the seasonings. Add the tomato and chickpeas and cook for 15 minutes. Adjust the salt.
3. Return the chicken to the pan and cook the noodles according to package directions.
4. Serve the pasta with the sauce and a toasted pepper (optional).