Since my menu theme for this week is Moroccan, I wanted to make either a side dish or a beverage to go along with the chicken stew I had already decided on. My first impulse was coffee, but I did make a coffee cocktail recently, so I wanted to mix things up a little. Then I came across this recipe for harcha bread, and that was that. I had used semolina to make a Turkish cake recipe a while back and absolutely loved it. This would be a totally different taste using semolina, so I had to give it a try.
Harcha is a Moroccan bread that takes the shape of a galette and is prepared with semolina and butter or olive oil.
The Ingredients
After the long list of ingredients for the Moroccan Slow Cooker Chicken Stew with Chickpeas recipe I made earlier this week, I was kind of relieved to find this harcha recipe has only 6 ingredients. A truly short (and sweet) list. A lot of it is staple items, but I did have to stock up on butter and semolina since it calls for a lot of both. My local grocery store carries both, so no special trips or Amazon orders were needed.
The Process
I made my harcha while my Moroccan Slow Cooker Chicken Stew with Chickpeas was cooking in my crockpot. I expected both to take around 3 hours, but I had my harcha ready in under an hour. Here’s how the time broke down:
- 7 minutes to prep
- 15 minutes for the dough to rest
- 34 minutes to cook
- 56 minutes total
The instructions were very clear and easy to follow, but I had to guess at how thick the pressed out dough needed to be. I’d say it was about 1/4-inch thick. I used the largest glass I have to cut out my harcha loaves and got 12 instead of the 8 listed in the recipe. I was wondering if my glass wasn’t large enough or I pressed the dough too thin. Either way, it worked out well because the harcha was very dense and filling. I think small loaves are the way to go with this recipe.
I don’t happen to have a stand mixer, so I used my trusty hand mixer and hand no issues. Mixing the dough doesn’t take long at all, so no worries if you don’t have a stand mixer either.
I noticed the recipe calls for cooking the harcha in a nonstick skillet, which I did. I also noticed it didn’t call for any extra butter or oil. That, I assumed, was because there are nearly 2 sticks of melted butter in the batter. I was able to cook my harcha just as instructed with no extra oil in the pan and absolutely no sticking.
