Chicken nikitouches — pearl pasta in red sauce

meat Tunisian Jewish · regular · 70 min, including 30 hands-on

The Shabbat dish of the Jews of Tunis: chicken legs and chickpeas simmered in a red sauce with fried tomato purée, turmeric and harissa, then small pearls of pasta added to soak up the sauce.

Ingredients for two

Method

1. Chop the onion and crush the garlic. Cut the celery stalks into 1 cm pieces; remove the leaves and reserve them whole. Cut the peeled carrot into 5 mm rounds and, if using, the peeled potato into 3 cm cubes. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Pat the chicken pieces dry with kitchen paper and season with 1 g salt. Bring 900 g water to the boil in a kettle (or saucepan) and keep hot.
2. Heat 10 g oil in a 24 cm casserole over a medium heat. Add the ptitim and stir for 2 minutes: a few pearls should turn pale golden and smell of toasted wheat. Tip into a bowl; do not let them brown, as their flavour should remain delicate.
3. Heat the remaining 30 g oil in the casserole over a medium-high heat. Add the chicken skin-side down in a single layer (in two batches if the casserole is small) and brown for 5 minutes without moving it, until the skin is brown and crisp. Turn, brown for 3 minutes, then set aside on a plate. If more than 2 tbsp fat remain in the bottom, spoon off the excess. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion, celery pieces and carrot, and sweat for 5 minutes, stirring, without browning.
4. Add the garlic and turmeric and stir for 30 seconds, then add the tomato purée, paprika, tabil and harissa. Stir over a medium heat for 1–2 minutes until the paste darkens, turns glossy and smells fragrant (the same essential technique as for hraimi: do not skip it). Return the chicken skin-side up, pour in the 900 g hot water and add the chickpeas, celery leaves, potato cubes if using, and remaining 6 g salt. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook over a low heat for 30 minutes: the sauce turns brick red and fragrant, and the meat starts to come away from the bone. Taste a spoonful of sauce: it should be distinctly salty. Adjust now, before adding the pasta.
5. Add the ptitim, stir and cook uncovered at a gentle simmer for 10 minutes, stirring twice to loosen the pasta from the bottom. The pasta should be tender to the centre and the chicken should fall apart easily under a fork; the sauce should coat the pasta, with a little liquid still simmering around the edges.
6. Turn off the heat, scatter over chopped parsley and rest for 2 minutes, covered. Serve in shallow bowls, with one thigh and one drumstick per person on top of the pasta and chickpeas, generously coated in sauce.

On your plate

Cooking tips

Ptitim (Osem) make an excellent substitute for hand-rolled nikitouches. If you find artisan nikitouches, they take 15–20 minutes to cook: add them 5 minutes earlier and follow the packet timing. If the pasta catches during cooking, add 50 g hot water. The dish reheats very well over a low heat on Saturday lunchtime with 50 g water, so make double. To prepare a day ahead, stop before adding the pasta, cool and refrigerate; bring back to a simmer and cook the pasta just before serving. For dried chickpeas, soak 100 g the day before, add with the water in step 4 and cook for 40 minutes before returning the chicken (allow an extra 40 minutes).

Equipment : 24 cm casserole with a lid (about 4 litres), kettle or 1.5-litre saucepan, bowl, ladle

Nikitouches from Tunisian Jewish cooking, a Shabbat dish of chicken and chickpeas in a red tomato-purée sauce; a version using ptitim. Reference: Lily's family recipe (jardindelatorah.org).