Seafood Briouats
Last Updated: 2021-05-11
10 PIECES EASY 150 CAL APPETIZER 60 MIN (40 MIN PREP + 20 MIN COOK TIME)
Travelling advice: always bring your sense of adventure to the dinner table.
Latin America has empanadas, India has samosas, and Morocco has hot, crispy briouats (pronounced: BREE-wats), thin, flaky pastry dough filled with delicious goodness.
You can find briouats in fancy restaurants or at street vendors’ booths, with the favorite filling being chicken.
The first time I went to Café Hafa, I got to try seafood briouats. The culinary adventuress I am (or glutton, as some have called me), I tried them several times that very afternoon. Since then this type of briouat have been one of my favorite Moroccan dishes.
Today we’ll learn how to make seafood briouats. Let’s get started!
Ingredients
Boiled Mussels (7 ounces or 200 grams or about 6 mussels)
Boiled Prawns/Shrimp (5 ounces or 150 grams)
Rice Noodles (5 ounces or 150 grams)
Powdered Garlic, Cumin, Salt and Pepper
Harissa Sauce
Half a Green Onion
Puff Pastry or Phyllo Dough
Olive Oil (3 Tablespoons)
A Dash of Vinegar
1 Egg
Ingredients for the Harissa Sauce
Sweet Paprika (1 teaspoon)
Spicy Paprika (1 teaspoon)
A Dash of Vinegar
A Dash of Olive Oil
Directions
1 If you’re lucky you can find harissa sauce in your nearest supermarket or, if not, you can try a local halal stop. Otherwise, it’s easy to make. Mix the two types of paprika in a bowl then add vinegar and olive oil and stir. Although it’s easy to make, you need to take your time. You want to get a pasty consistency. If you’re impatient you’ll end up with a sauce that’s too runny.
2 Now for the filling. Cut the mussels and shrimp into chunks (you can buy them raw and boil them or buy them already cooked). Then, add the harissa sauce, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder (or 1 chopped clove if you like garlic), olive oil, and vinegar. Mix and allow the flavors to develop for 15-20 minutes.
3 Meanwhile, cook the noodles. It’s best to follow the instructions on the packaging. I usually put them in boiling water with a pinch of salt for around 3 minutes. Since they’re usually quite long, it’s best to cut them into shorter sections to make them easier to eat.
4 Finely chop the green onion and put it in with the noodles, the mussels and shrimp. Then we can start making our triangles (I prefer puff pastry dough because it’s easier to work with and crunchier, but you can use phyllo dough too).
5 To get the best look, cut the dough into rectangles. Then, put the filling on one end (be careful not to put too much, otherwise the filling will ooze out of the sides of your briouats), then fold over the filling several times in triangle shapes. When you get to the end of the rectangle, brush the whisked egg on to the surfaces to hold them together.
6 The triangles that you end up with can be cooked in two different ways: pan-fried or baked. If you decide to go with the pan fried option, cover a pan with olive oil and cook on medium heat until brown (it’ll only take a few minutes since the filling is already cooked). If you opt for baking them, (which I recommend if, like me, you don’t like oily food) preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC) and bake for 10-15 minutes.
These crispy, flaky seafood briouats always take me to afternoons in times past sitting in the Café Hafa gazing out at Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Much love to all and see you in the next post!
If you want to learn more check out our page on famous Moroccan foods.
