Feast Dish · Hand-Rolled Pearl Pasta
Berkoukes (Kabyle-Style)
Photo: Indif / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
The grains are rolled from semolina and water in a wide dish, like couscous but left much larger, and families traditionally sun-dry a supply to last through winter.
Berkoukes is a large, hand-rolled semolina pasta similar to pearl couscous, simmered in a vegetable and legume broth. Kabylie's version stands apart for adding kadid (dried, salted mutton) and khlii (dried fat), which give the broth a distinctly rich, preserved-meat flavor.
Why it's made this way: A winter favorite that also appears at celebrations such as Yennayer, Kabyle berkoukes leans on pantry staples like dried meat that mountain families preserved to last through the cold season.
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