Gazelle’s ankles

This recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is the ancestor of the modern North African almond-stuffed crescent-shaped biscuits, often called by their French name of cornes de gazelle, which are known in Arabic either as qarn al-ghazāl (قرن الغزال) or ka’b al-ghazāl (كعب الغزال, ‘gazelle ankles’), as they were in the Middle Ages. In Algeria, they are commonly called tcharek (تشاراك ) msakker (مسكّر, ‘sugared’).

Unlike the present-day sweets, the 13th-century variety was shaped into rolls. The dough is made with flour, olive oil, hot water and salt, added with fennel seeds, aniseed, pepper and ginger. For the stuffing, sugar and almonds are mixed together with rose water and aromatic spices. The dough is then shaped into very thin rolls in which the stuffing is placed before baking them in the oven. The author adds that some ‘refined people’ (ظرفاء, ẓurafā’) add crushed pine nuts to the filling, as well as whole pine nut into each roll. After baking, they should be kept in a jar, but, based on how good they are, I don’t think anyone needs a particularly big one!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *