BAKING PROJECT

This is a Moroccan recipe and can be served during breakfast or tea-time.  You can have it with jam, honey, melted butter or in this recipe, stuffed with savoury filling.  Harcha or harsha is pretty easy to make,  no kneading involve when making the dough.   Only thing is you have to have Semolina flour (tepung suji).   Important tools to have is a non-stick skillet and a thin spatula to flip the bread.   Cook these harchas closer to eating time.  Coz it is best eaten warm.   The recipe :

Enough to feed 4 tummies :

In a big bowl, mix in the flour, butter and oil.  Rub with your fingers till all the butter is crumbled.  Then add in the baking powder and salt and mix slightly.   Mix the honey and milk, and pour bit by bit into the flour mixture.  At first it will look very wet.  But don’t worry, the flour will soon absorb all the liquid and it will firm up.   You don’t have to knead, just mix till all is even.  Then leave to rest for about 15 minutes.

In the mean time, prepare the filling.  You can use any type of filling you want, maybe something similar to our curry puff filling.  I just used leftover of pasta sauce from last nite’s dinner.  Added some cheese on top.

Ok,  take a ball of the dough, roughly about the size of an egg.  Flatten it and put the filling in the center.  Then take a bit more dough, flatten and press on top to cover the filling.  Press the edges to seal the filling.  Flatten slightly.   It won’t look very nice but again, do not despair.  It will turn out fine when cooked.

To fry the harcha, sprinkle some semolina on the skillet.  Use a small fire.  No need to oil the pan.  Just slide the harcha in and let it cooked for maybe 5 minutes on each side, till it turns golden brown.  The harcha is very fragile, so try not to flip too many times as it will disintegrate or go off-shape.   The butter from the dough will moisten the bottom of the harcha while it cooks so you don’t need to stir it too much.

The taste ?  Buttery, crumbly inside and crunchy on the outside.  Similar to corn bread.   Its really good and I will definitely make this again..