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Bastilla

Breads, Flatbreads and Savory Pastries

Bastilla, also spelled pastilla and known in Arabic as bastila, is a meat or seafood pie of Maghrebi cuisine made with warqa dough, a pastry similar to filo, and is a specialty of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where a regional version is called malsouka. Its fillings typically include broth and spices along with squab, chicken, fish or offal, and emigrants have more recently carried the dish to France, Israel and North America. The name is thought to come from the Spanish word pastilla, meaning either pill or small pastry, reflecting a shift from p to b that is common when Spanish words enter Arabic.

Facts
Disputed
Origin Period, From (Year)
from 1230 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountDebated among historians: Anny Gaul traces a strong resemblance to the stuffing in 13th-century Andalusi cookbooks (the value recorded here, taken as a representative mid-13th-century year). Idriss Bouhlila and Ahmed al-Rahouni instead argue an Ottoman origin, reaching northern Morocco through Algerian migration after 1830, and Gil Marks attributes it to Sephardic Jews who brought it to Morocco before filo later replaced the Andalusi-style pastry. No single origin year is agreed among these accounts.
Classification
Dietary SuitabilitySourced to the subject's own account
Contains Meat or Poultry 1
Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own account
Morocco (also Algeria and Tunisia) 1
Connections

In Cuisine

Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)
Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)
Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)
Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)

Uses Ingredient

Chicken, Ingredients
Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)
Squab, Ingredients
Source Bastilla (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Bastilla (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Lead section
    It is a specialty of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, where its variation is known as malsouka.
  • History section, paragraph 1
    The historian Anny Gaul attests to recipes that bear "a strong resemblance to the stuffing that goes inside modern-day bastila" in 13th century Andalusi cookbooks
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastilla (dietary-suitability)
    Pastilla is a meat or seafood pie in Maghrebi cuisine made with warqa dough (ورقة), which is similar to filo.
  • In Cuisine: Algerian Cuisine, Wikipedia category list
  • In Cuisine: Middle Eastern Cuisine, Wikipedia category list
  • In Cuisine: Moroccan Cuisine, Wikipedia category list
  • In Cuisine: North African Cuisine, Wikipedia category list
View the Source
Bastilla (Wikipedia)
  • Uses Ingredient: Chicken, Infobox main_ingredient field: Warka dough, broth, spices; squab, chicken, fish or offal
  • Uses Ingredient: Squab, Infobox main_ingredient field: Warka dough, broth, spices; squab, chicken, fish or offal
View the Source
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