Tajine Malsouka.

Name: Tajine Malsouka (Tunisian Baked Egg and Cheese Casserole)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Tunisia
Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil; 2 onions, finely chopped; 400 g cooked chicken thigh, shredded or finely chopped; 3 cloves garlic, crushed; 1 tsp turmeric; 1 tsp harissa; 40 g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped; 8 eggs; 150 g dry hard cheese, finely grated; 3 tbsp fine dry breadcrumbs; 1 tsp black pepper, coarsely ground; 1 tsp fine salt; 3 malsouka or filo sheets, for lining

Tunisian Baked Egg and Cheese Casserole

طاجين ملسوقة · say it: tah-JEEN mal-SOO-ka

A Tunisian tajine is not a conical clay pot and not a stew. It is a thick baked egg dish, closer to a dense frittata or a crustless quiche, made by folding shredded cooked chicken, softened onion, a great deal of parsley and grated hard cheese into beaten eggs, then baking the lot until it is firm enough to cut into neat squares. The taste is savoury and cheesy with a background of turmeric and pepper, and the texture should be solid, not custardy. It is party food, picnic food and lunchbox food, and it is just as good at room temperature the next day.

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Tunisian Baked Egg and Cheese Casserole

Gate: TunisiaTunis
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 1 hr
Total time: 1 hr 30 min incl. 10 min rest
Serves: 6
Status: Medium
Nutrition / serving · estimated: Calories 400 kcal; Protein 33 g; Carbs 10 g; Fat 25 g; Fiber 1 g; Sodium 690 mg

Why this recipe works.

Filling is cooked and cooled before it meets the eggs, so the tajine sets evenly instead of weeping liquid.
Spells out the doneness test that matters: it must be firm in the centre, because a wobbly Tunisian tajine cannot be cut into squares.
Works with or without the malsouka lining, with clear instructions for both.
Better on day two, so it can be made entirely in advance for a party or a packed lunch.

Tips from our kitchen.

Cook the onion until genuinely soft and lightly golden. Raw onion in a baked egg dish stays crunchy and releases water into the set.
Squeeze any moisture out of the filling before the eggs go in — wet chicken or undrained vegetables will give you a layer of liquid under the crust.
Grate the cheese finely so it disperses. Coarse shreds melt into pockets that leave holes in the finished slab.
Use a dish that gives you a depth of 4–5 cm. Shallower and it dries out; deeper and the middle is still liquid when the top has browned.
Let it rest at least 10 minutes out of the oven before cutting, or the squares slump at the edges.
Line the tin with baking paper up the sides if you want to lift the whole slab out cleanly for cutting.

Substitutions.

Dried Tunisian hard cheese → Gruyère, aged gouda, kefalotyri or a dry mature cheddar: What you need is a cheese that grates dry and does not turn stringy. Fresh soft cheeses release water and stop the tajine setting.
Chicken → Cooked lamb, tinned tuna, or 300 g of wilted, squeezed-dry spinach: All three are made in Tunisia. Whatever you use, it should be cooked and dry before it joins the eggs.
Malsouka lining → Filo pastry brushed with olive oil, or no lining at all: The lining adds a crisp shell. Without it you simply have a plain-sided tajine, which is how many households make it on a weeknight.

Variations.

Tajine sibnekh: Made with spinach in place of most of the chicken, giving a green, softer slab often served as part of a cold table.
Tajine bil loubia: White beans cooked until soft and folded into the egg mixture, a filling version from the interior that needs no meat.
Tajine bil bsal: Heavy on slow-cooked caramelised onion with only a little chicken, sweeter and darker than the standard version.

Storage & reheating.

Cool completely, then refrigerate whole or in cut squares for up to 4 days — it firms up further overnight and slices more cleanly cold than warm. Serve straight from the fridge, at room temperature, or briefly warmed in a low oven; microwaving makes the egg rubbery and squeezes out water. It freezes acceptably for 2 months in individual squares wrapped tight, though the texture becomes slightly grainier on thawing.

Serve with

Slata mechouia, olives and bread, with lemon wedges and harissa on the side.

The story behind Tajine Malsouka.

The shared name causes constant confusion, and the two dishes have nothing in common beyond it. In Morocco and Algeria, tajine means the earthenware vessel with the tall lid and the slow-cooked stew inside it. In Tunisia, the word attached itself to the round earthenware dish this baked egg cake was cooked in, so the name describes the container in both cases — it simply pointed at different containers. A Tunisian who orders tajine expects a wedge of set egg on a plate, and will be surprised by anything in a sauce.

Structurally it belongs with the baked egg dishes found all round the Mediterranean, from Spanish tortilla to Italian frittata to the Levantine eggah, but the Tunisian version is drier and denser than any of them, because it carries so much solid filling relative to egg and is baked long enough to set completely through. The cheese is traditionally a hard, dry, aged one, grated fine — much of the country now uses supermarket gruyère or a similar hard cheese for the same purpose, and Tunisian cooks abroad reach for whatever grates dry.

Fillings run in every direction. Chicken and parsley is the standard; there are versions with lamb's brain, with spinach, with white beans, with potato, with cured meat. Tunisian Jewish home cooking has its own closely related baked egg dishes under different names, part of a long shared kitchen in cities like Tunis and Djerba. The name malsouka refers to lining the dish with sheets of the same thin pastry used for brik, which gives the finished tajine a crisp edge and a top that shatters slightly under the knife — worth doing, but the dish is entirely legitimate without it.

Questions, answered.

Is this the same as a Moroccan tagine?

No, and the resemblance stops at the spelling. A Moroccan tagine is a slow-cooked stew named after the conical clay pot it cooks in. The Tunisian tajine is a baked egg casserole, closer to a thick frittata, that took its name from the round earthenware dish it was traditionally baked in.

How do I know when it is properly set?

The top should be domed and browned, the sides should have pulled slightly away from the dish, and a knife pushed into the centre should come out clean with no liquid egg on it. If the middle still trembles when you shake the dish, it needs another ten minutes.

Can I make Tunisian tajine ahead of time?

It is arguably better made ahead. Bake it up to two days early, refrigerate it whole, and cut it cold — the slab firms up and the squares hold their edges much better than they do warm. Bring it back to room temperature for about half an hour before serving.

Why did my tajine come out watery underneath?

Something in the filling was still wet. Onion that was not cooked down, spinach that was not squeezed, or chicken poached and added straight from its liquid will all release water during baking, which sinks and pools. Cook and cool the filling first, and drain it hard.

Can I make it without the pastry lining?

Yes. Plenty of Tunisian households bake it in a plain oiled dish, and the recipe works identically — you simply lose the crisp edge. If you skip the lining, oil the dish well and line the base with baking paper so the squares lift out without tearing.

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