Morocco

Pastilla is one of those dishes that has many different variations from region to region, and even household to household. If you asked 10 other people, you would get 20 different recipes. I’m doing my best adaptation based on the dozens of recipes I’ve seen online.

I’m starting with one whole onion, thinly sliced. I’ve seen recipes that add apricots or dates, so I’m adding about 10 diced apricots.

Garlic is my love language, so you know I’m using a lot in this dish, as well as a large knob of fresh ginger, about 3 inches (they don’t play about their spices, yall.)

Traditional recipes will braise the chicken for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. I, however, am NOT using traditional methods, so I’m using about a pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I like thigh meat because not only is it more flavorful, but it’s a lot more forgiving than white meat chicken. A chicken breast can dry out and overcook in the blink of an eye; dark meat is more robust. Season the thighs with salt and pepper. I grabbed my handy Dutch oven and heated it with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Brown the thighs on each side, about 3 minutes per side. The chicken doesn’t have to be fully cooked at this point, just browned.

Once my chicken had a nice tan, I removed it from the pot. i then added the sliced onions and a few splashes of chicken broth to scrape up the fond. After around 5 minutes, I added the minced ginger and garlic just long enough to make the entire house smell amazing. I added the rest of the broth (about a cup) and the chicken, which brings us to…

Researching this dish introduced me to Ras El Hanout. It’s a spice mix that is very popular in a lot of North African dishes. Tried as I might, I could not find it anywhere near me. You can order it online, but it would take too long to get to my neck of the woods, so I had to research further on how to make it myself. Man, there are a lot of different ways to make that as well. Some get fancy with rose petals and saffron, but most of the basic spices are the same throughout, so I just kept mine as simple as possible. It’s basically a mixture of salt, cumin, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, white pepper, coriander seeds, cayenne pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. As I said before, this dish doesn’t mess around when it comes to spicing it up, so I added a heaping, and I mean HEAPING, tablespoon to the pot with the onions, garlic, fresh ginger, and chicken broth. I then added the chicken back into the mix and let it simmer for about 10 minutes to let the chicken cook all the way through.

After the 10 minutes were up, I removed the chicken and shredded it. Most of the broth had reduced in the pot, leaving me with a thick sauce. I lightly beat two eggs and added them to the mixture to thicken it up even more. I then turned off the heat and added the apricots and almonds. Traditionally, the apricots and almonds would go into its own mixture and the whole set up would get layered like a lasagna (sauce, then meat, then almonds), but I’ve also seen recipes where everything was mixed together, so for the sake of shaving a few steps off of the process, I just added the apricots, almonds and chicken back into the pot. Several recipes also called for orange blossom water, which sounds amazing, but I could not find any near me, so I substituted the zest of one orange.

Now that my filling is done. I need to preheat the oven and get out my trusty cast-iron skillet. I used a 12-inch, but this easily could have fit into a 9-inch. You could also use a pie plate or another oven-safe dish, but keep in mind that with those, you may have to flip the pie halfway through to ensure crisping on both sides.

Once I had my baking vessel of choice, I liberally coated it with olive oil. I then set forth to hand-make some phyllo dough from scratch. Hahahahahahaha, no, I did not try making my own phyllo dough, because I don’t hate myself enough for that. Even professional pastry chefs will tell you to just go buy phyllo, it’s fine. Make sure your phyllo is thawed, so either put it in the fridge the day before, or take it out of the freezer and let it come to room temperature on the counter.

This part is where time is of the essence; you don’t want your dough to dry out, so you’ll have to work quickly. I carefully unrolled the sheets and took one sheet at a time, folded it length-wise, and thoroughly coated it with olive oil. I then (CAREFULLY) placed it in the skillet, making sure to leave plenty of overhang to fold over the filling later. I repeated the process with the rest of the sheets, making sure to slightly overlap each one in the skillet until the entire bottom is covered in oily dough sheets and I couldn’t see any of the black skillet through the crust. Since I was using a 12-inch skillet, this took me about 15 sheets. If you are using a 9-inch skillet or other smaller dish, you can probably get away with 10. Once that’s done, put your filling in the dish

After I spread the filling out evenly, I folded over the hanging bits of phyllo to seal the pie. I took even more olive oil and brushed it across the top to make sure everything is greasier than a Diddy party (too soon?) and popped it in the  375°F  oven for around 30 minutes.

Once the pie was golden and crispy all over, I took it out of the oven and let it cool just enough to handle without needing a burn kit.

The final step before I could try my latest creation was to cover the pie in… powdered sugar? I was so confused about that. Why would a savory meat pie need to be covered in sugar? In all the variations of this recipe I read, the one constant was decorating the pie with powdered sugar and cinnamon before serving. I have my doubts, but I’m trusting the process.

And here is the final result. It smelled amazing and looked fantastic. Now there’s only one thing left to do…

Oh, my GOD! I take back what I said about the powdered sugar. This pie was amazing! The sweetness of the sugar and apricots blended perfectly with the spices and the savory meat and sauce! It had some heat to it, but not overwhelming. Hubby helped himself to seconds and even thirds! I still have some phyllo dough left over in my freezer, so I will definitely be making this again!