Vegetarian recipes from Tunisia

Tunisian cooking without meat leans on durum wheat, as semolina and as bread, on pulses and chickpeas above all, and on olive oil, which remains the reference fat. Seasoning comes from a short repeated list: harissa, garlic, caraway, ground coriander and cumin. Vegetables often meet direct fire before being assembled, which is what gives cold preparations their flavour, as in mechouia salad, grilled peppers and tomatoes chopped together. Chakchouka follows the other route, a slow stew of peppers and tomatoes in oil.

A meal is built around one main dish with salads served at the same time and bread for mopping. Two meatless dishes belong to set moments of the day: lablebi, a chickpea broth with garlic and cumin poured over stale bread, is eaten early in the morning or late at night; kafteji gathers fried vegetables chopped together, often with an egg. Egg is in fact central to the meatless repertoire, enough to define a dish in itself, the egg brik, a thin sheet fried around a yolk left runny.