Algerian Chermoula, La Chermoula Algérienne (charmoula)

It's a marinade, a dip, a sauce, a dressing, a spread. It's chermoula!

Algerian chermoula is made from four basic components: cilantro or flat leaf parsley, olive oil, an acid (lemon juice or vinegar), and aromatics (garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, or ramps). Since spices and peppers are optional, I won't include them as a basic component.

There are raw and cooked versions of chermoula. The consistency can be a smooth emulsion, coarsely chopped or in between. It can be used as marinade, relish, dressing, basic cooking sauce, or a dip.

Blender Chermoula

Save yourself the time of pounding all the ingredients in a mortar and pestle to form an emulsion chermoula by using a blender. This version can be used as a marinade for chicken and seafood or as a dressing for salads or a dip for breads and vegetables. For the Los Angeles Times article "Tagine Dreams" I added a little blender chermoula to my chicken brik, the same filling minus the egg also works with boureks which are basically Algerian spring rolls. Shrimp, scallops or tuna are good substitutes for chicken. Filo pastry or spring roll wrappers can be substituted for warka pastry leaves.

Total time: 5 minutes
Servings: Makes 1 1/4 cups
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 pinch sweet paprika
1 pinch cayenne
3/4 cup cilantro leaves, lightly packed
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly packed
1/3 teaspoon ras el hanout, optional (see recipe)
Salt to taste Place the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, paprika, cayenne, cilantro, parsley and optional ras el hanout in a food processor. Puree until smooth and emulsified. Season to taste with salt.

This is a more common finely chopped chermoula. I added half a serrano pepper for some heat. The consistency for a chopped chermoula varies widely. It can be coarse or like a pesto. I added lemon zest also, depending on the application a little bit of preserved lemon can be a delicious addition. This version can be used in all the typical ways. It's also added to tagines during the last 5-10 minutes of cooking to freshen up slow cooked flavors.

Chermoula Potato Salad

I think quite a few North African cookbooks and food articles written in French, Arabic or English neglect to mention very simple home cooking dishes and variations. Often what I find is that the same 2-3 things are repeated again and again about a sauce, a spice blend, or tagine cooking. Yes, chermoula is very commonly used for fish, but it has so many other uses in Algerian cooking. Still, I will repeat the most commonly repeated applications. Stuffed into sardines, smeared on top of rouget for a marinade, etc.. I posted a spicy chermoula shrimp escabeche (skabetch) preparation in an earlier post.

Chermoula also makes a very tasty dressing for cooked or raw vegetable salads. I mixed in a little bit of Algerian style olive oil mayonnaise for this potato salad. I gently mashed 1/4 of the boiled potatoes and sliced the remaining 3/4. The result is a pleasant textural contrast between creamy, mousse-like mashed potatoes and firmer sliced potatoes. Add finely chopped fresh fennel bulb for crunch.

Lemon wedges and fresh herbs are ubiquitous to the Algerian table. 

I was planning on making chermoula deviled eggs (deviled eggs are a French influence in Algerian cooking), but decided to make a deviled egg salad instead. The dressing is made from sour cream and a cooked chermoula relish. I don't know if mayonnaise is a French influence or a Spanish. We call it mahonaiss (possibly derived from Mahon on the island of Menorca), but sour cream is not. We made fresh sour cream on our family farm in Setif, Algeria.

A cooked chermoula is very easy to make. Simple sautee shallots or onions until they start to caramelize, add fresh lemon juice and herbs, take off heat and stir. I'm very partial to shallots because my family in both Algeria and France used them more often than onions in cooking.

I served the deviled egg salad on freshly made baguette, you can toast or grill the baguette slices if you like. But this bread was so fresh and good that it didn't need anything done to it. Serve with a salad for a light lunch. Baguette bread is obviously another French influence in Algeria. You can also serve this with flat bread or a leavened khobz.

Chermoula Deviled Egg Salad

Comments

[fernando ore lund]

i like to make a peruvian truit fish, with chermoula, the flavour of this fish is soft so i want to do this dish with charmoula in honor of Magreb´s cuisine because for us(peruvians) we got a big influence about magreb´s cuisine so...would you recomend me which kind of ingredients i have to use more and which one less quantity for this kind of fish, is like a salmon but withless fats... thank you