Rfissa

What it is

Rfissa is a dish of chicken in sauce, served over torn flatbread that soaks up the sauce.¹ It is well known in Morocco, but not an everyday meal.² The portal maroc.ma lists rfissa, with a film, among the country’s intangible cultural heritage, on the pages of several regions, such as Fès-Meknès, Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma, Casablanca-Settat and Marrakech-Safi.³

The bread for it is called trid; on Bladi the dish appears under the name “Rfissa ou trid”.⁴ Harrell’s dictionary of Moroccan Arabic from the 1960s still knows rfisa as a kind of porridge of bread, milk and butter, and trid as a very thin pancake eaten with honey or other sweet things.⁵

What it is made of

For the sauce, the recipes name chicken, onions, lentils and fenugreek (halba), along with ras el hanout, ginger, saffron or turmeric, parsley, coriander and smen (clarified butter).⁶ The dough for the flatbreads consists of flour, salt and lukewarm water, with yeast as well in Morocco World News’s version.⁷

How it is made

The dough is shaped into small balls, dipped in oil, rolled out very thinly and cooked in the pan so that they stay pale and almost translucent; then they are shredded.⁸ The chicken braises with onions, spices, herbs, lentils and fenugreek for about an hour.⁹

Finally the sheets of dough are steamed in the couscoussier, spread out on a round platter and covered with chicken and sauce until they are well soaked.¹⁰ Morocco World News puts the chicken and sauce onto the torn bread until it has absorbed enough of them.¹¹

How it is cooked

When

Traditionally the family prepares rfissa for a woman after she has given birth, also as a sign of its gratitude.¹² It is also served when women visit one another.¹³

In some areas rfissa, with boiled eggs, is also part of a celebration in the seventh month of pregnancy; there it is served mainly to the women on three consecutive days.¹⁴