Delicacy of North Africa: Makrout

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

EDIT: This is re-post from several years back.

I am posting about Makrout for a nice lady Allyson from a forum I am Algerian Women Forum. Thank you Allyson for reading my blog and trying the recipes.

Makrout [المقروض] (also spelled makroud, makroudh or maqrout) are delicious little losange shaped semolina based cakes, filled with either of date paste, almonds, peanuts, or sesame seeds. Deep fried or baked and then they are submerged in blossom water scented honey. Heavenly morsels  for sure ... but one, maybe two are enough as they are very sweet and caloric!

Makrouts are considered a North African delicacies since they combine all the goodness of the land; the cereals (semolina), nuts, olive oil and dates.

Makrout were in the past only made at home by grandmothers, but with wide popularity all over the world even fancy bakeries are preparing them!

They originated in Tunisia in the historic city of Kairouan (القيروان), but they were made widely famous by its neighboring country of Algeria, where I live. But all of the countries in North African, from Morocco to Libya offer up their own version of this delight every holiday season. Tables are truly not complete without it.

There are several types of Makrout with many fillings and forms. In the near future, I will be posting some preparations of these various Makrout for you all! But today, I will only briefly talk about them and show some pictures of makrout I have made recently.

The basic method of making makrout is this:

1. Grease your hands. 
2. Roll grains of semolina in the palm of your hands, in order for all the grains to be greased. 
3. Then mix in blossom water to form a soft dough. 
4.  Allow the dough to rest.
5.  Once rested you can prepare your filling and shape the cookies.

But the filling and way to shape the cookie really depend on the type you are making ... so I will leave that part for next time ...I will post the recipes for the variesties types in the near future ... the ones that are pictured .... but until then may a your tables be the core of warmth!

And on a side note, you may have noticed I have returned the labels on the bottom of the page for easier viewing. And the mishap I had of my recipe index being deleted somehow is soon be resolved. I am still in the process of retyping it all. Thanks for the patients friends! Salut!

 Types of Makrout:

• Makrout nekache ( pinced makroud)
• M'tekba - also referred to as - M'bessesse (makroud without filling)
• Makrout b'four, also called Makrout el koucha (baked Makrout)
• Makrout bel louz (All almond deliciacy that involves nosemolina or honey at all, but almonds, eggs and lemon zest 
• Makrout l'assel (with almonds and honey 
• Makrout b' zeit zeitoune (with olive oil)
• Makrout b' djildjlen (with sesame seeds) 
• Makrout b' kawkaw (with peanuts) 
• Makrout b' djouz (with hazelnuts) 
• Makrout ghars also called Makrout b'tam'r or Makrout frit (with dates)
• Makrout à farine (Makrout made with flour, not semolina)

You can find makrout in the basic losange as above but also in many other shapes and sizes:

• Makrout en form mandarine (mandarin shaped Makrout)
  Makrout en form figue (fig shaped Makrout)
• Makrout feuillette (leaf shaped Makrout)
• Makrout Gros ( large makrout that are about the size of your palm)
• Makrout fine (very small mini makrout bites)

And there are spin off of Makrouts worthy mentioing:

Bradja
Mbesses
Mtabga

Makrout Syrienne 
Makffins ( Makrout muffins)

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