Libya: vegan M’battan

Our first stop in North Africa finds us in Libya, where Arabic, Berber and Mediterranean traditions fuse. To explore the Libyan kitchen, we make vegan M’battan: a delicious snack of battered, deep fried potato wedges stuffed with spiced soy mince. Read on to learn a bit about Libyan cuisine or jump straight to the recipe.

Libyan Cuisine

Libyan cuisine is similar to their North African neighbours. A fusion of Arabic and Berber cuisines (an indigenous group living in North Africa) with Mediterranean influences ​[1]–[3]​. Along the Northern coast, the closeness to Italy can be seen in the popularity of pizza and pasta. Meat, seafood, eggs and milk are common animal proteins but legumes such as lentils and chickpeas also play an important role. Tomatoes, eggplant and bell pepper are popular vegetables. A plethora of spices such as ginger, garlic, scallions, fresh herbs like mint, parsley, cilantro, along with ground spices like coriander seeds, cumin, cinnamon and nutmeg are used in most recipes. Couscous, bread and grains are among the most prominent carbohydrates. Grains are often toasted before being ground into flour and baked into breads. On the topic of breads, one particular cooking method is quite unique for the dessert areas of Libya and North Africa: sand ovens ​[4], [5]​. The nomadic Tuareg people sometimes bury dough in the hot sands, letting it bake in the sunheated sand. To speed things up, sometimes the smouldering coals and embers of a nearby fire is used to cover the sand.

Popular Libyan dishes

Couscous might be one of the most traditional foods in Libya ​[3]​. Crushed wheat is steamed in the pot above the stew it is to be served with to create a light fluffy side, full of flavour. The couscous is often served with a rich stew with vegetables and meat. Bazin is a typical dish where a dough ball is made by mixing flour into boiling water ​[2]​. The dough is then kneaded into a ball, placed in a bowl and surrounded by a simple sauce with vegetables (and usually some meat). The traditional way to eat this dish is to tear of pieces of the dough and eat with your hands ​[6]​. Other stew like dishes such as tajiin, where vegetables like bell pepper and egg plants are stuffed with rice and baked in a tomato sauce, and shakshuka (a spicy tomato and pepper sauce, often finished with an egg on top) are also popular ​[3], [7]​. Makaruna imbaukha is an interesting take on pasta where thin noodles is steamed and served in a sauce with tomatoes, chickpeas, potatoes, pumpkin, raisins, ginger and sprinkled with orange water ​[7], [8]​.

Vegan M’battan

For our visit to Libya, I chose to cook m’battan or mubattan, also known as m’battan batata ​[9]–[12]​. This special treat is popular during Ramadan and consists of potato wedges, traditionally stuffed with spiced minced meat such as lamb. In this vegan m’battan recipe, I replaced the lamb with soy mince which is fried with onion, garlic, cinnamon, ginger and parsley. This filling is then stuffed into carefully cut potato wedges, which breaded and deep fried. Sometimes the m’battan is served or baked in a tomato sauce after deep frying.

Honestly, these vegan m’battan were much easier to make than I feared. I thought all the potatoes would snap and that the filling would just leak into the hot oil when frying. But by cutting fairly thin (~3 mm) sides and creating a deep cut, it was quite easy to stuff the wedges. The stuffing also sticks very well together by using the immersion blender trick detailed in the recipe below. And, after some experimentation with flax eggs, I got great results for breading and deep frying using the technique of dipping first in liquid, followed by flour, liquid and then finally breadcrumbs, like we did for the coconut crusted cauliflower for our visit to Nauru. (The liquid being soy milk, no flax egg used in the final version.)

Conclusion

These vegan m’battan turned out great. WEhen you bte into them, you first feel the very crunchy, crispy exterior and then continue into perfectly soft potato and then you get the spices from the vegan mince filling. Will make again for a North African and West Asian meze style spread.

Vegan m’battan

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Vegan m’battan

These stuffed, breaded, and deep fried Libyan potato wedges are a great snack for any picnic or party.

Course Snack

Cuisine Libya, North Africa

Keyword deep fried, potatoes

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 20 m’battan

Ingredients

• 2-3 large potatoes ~500 g
• 200 g minced meat substitute I use Yves
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 50 mL parsley, chopped
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp black pepper
• salt, to taste
• 100 mL soy milk
• 50 mL all purpose flour
• 100 mL bread crumbs
• oil for deep frying ~500 mL

Instructions

Filling

• Sweat the onion in some oil in a pan on medium heat. Stir in the garlic.
• When fragrant and translucent, add the vegan mince, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper.
• Continue cooking until cooked through. Add a a splash of water if needed. Stir in the chopped parsley and some salt.
• The mince has to be able to stick together. One trick is to use an immersion blender and blend part of the filling and then stir it all together. Other tricks are using liquid and breadcrumbs or adding vital wheat gluten.
• Set aside and let cool.

Prepare potato wedges

• While the vegan mince is cooking and cooling, prepare the potatoes.
• Mix the ground flax with the water and set aside to create a flax egg.
• Peel the potatoes and cut them lengthwise, into two long halves.

  Slice these into ~6 mm thick slices and carefully slice through most of the centre. Your goal is to create something that remotely resembles a little taco or partially sliced baguette.

Assembly and frying

• Once the vegan mince stuffing is cool enough to handle, take a potato wedge and pack in some of the stuffing.
• Dip the potato wedge in the flax egg and then straight into the breadcrumbs.
• Make a few potato wedges at a time and set aside.
• Pour the oil for deep frying into a pot and heat to ~150°C. This is a quite low temperature for deep frying.
• Add a few potato wedges at a time to the hot oil and fry until golden brown. About 5 min. Scoop out and set aside until all are ready.
• If the potato is not cooked through, you can finish the wedges in the oven. Reduce the temperature for the next batch.

References