Brik à l'œuf

Name: Brik à l'œuf
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Tunisia
Ingredients: 4 sheets of malsouka or brick pastry; 4 eggs; 400 g potatoes; 1 small onion, chopped; 2 tbsp capers, drained; 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 1 tsp harissa; 30 g grated cheese; Oil for frying; Salt and pepper; 1 lemon

Local name: بريك بالبيض

A sheet of malsouka folded over crushed potato and a whole egg, fried for seconds and eaten with the fingers.

Published on 22 May 2026·Updated on 10 September 2026

#malsouka#egg#potato#capers#tunisia

Photo: Souad Anane Lesina , CC BY-SA 3.0

Prep: 20 min
Cook: 15 min
Total: 35 min
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Medium

Method

Boil the potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes. Crush them with a fork, leaving some texture.
Mix the crushed potato with the onion, capers, parsley, harissa and cheese. Season.
Lay a sheet on the work surface. Spread a quarter of the filling in a ring at the centre, leaving a hollow in the middle.
Break an egg into the hollow without piercing the yolk.
Fold the sheet into a half moon and press the edges between thumb and finger to seal.
Heat 2 cm of oil to 180C. Slide the brik in and spoon hot oil over the top for 60 seconds, until the pastry turns gold.
Drain and serve at once with a wedge of lemon. The yolk should still run.

You eat a brik by holding the point and biting the bulge of egg first, catching the yolk before it escapes. Give it a minute in the oil at most: any longer and the yolk sets, which defeats the whole gesture.

The techniques this recipe uses

Drain and rinse
Canning liquid clouds a sauce and salts it blind: rinse until the water runs clear.

Nutrition per serving

Calories: 183 kcal
Protein: 10 g
Fat: 5.6 g
Carbohydrate: 24.4 g
Fibre: 3.9 g

An estimate computed from the recipe quantities and the USDA food composition database. Real values vary with the products used.

Frequently asked questions

How do I seal the brik without tearing the pastry?

Take the sheets out of the packet one at a time, at the last moment: exposed to air they dry within minutes and split as you fold. Then press the edges firmly for about a centimetre between thumb and finger, pushing the air outwards so the brik does not balloon in the oil.

Can a brik be made without the egg?

Yes, the potato, caper and harissa filling stands perfectly well on its own, folded into a triangle and fried the same way. It is worth being honest, though: the runny yolk is what defines this particular brik. Without it you get an excellent fried pastry, but a different dish.

Why spoon hot oil over the brik instead of turning it?

Because turning it in two centimetres of oil risks piercing the dome over the egg, and the whole yolk escapes. Spooning cooks the exposed side in seconds without ever handling the brik. It is also what makes it possible to keep to the one-minute maximum, beyond which the yolk sets.

Vegetarian Maghreb cooking, with nothing missing
What Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia share — semolina, pulses, olive oil — and how their everyday dishes stand up perfectly well without meat.

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