Bstela- My new favorite food ever

I had read about Bstela (also spelled bstella, pastilla, bastilla, ¨tomato, tomahto?¨) in guidebooks for tourists while in the US before arriving to Spain for the first time. What I read about this Moroccan dish did not impress me in the least, for traditionally it was- I guess in some places still is- made with pidgeon meat. And that kinda grossed me out. I started thinking about Mary Poppins and tuppence to ¨feed the birds¨, except now it´s ¨eat the birds¨.
So now you are officially turned off by the prospect of this national dish. So was I, until I found out that it is almost always made with chicken or cornish hens (sigh of relief).
Bstela is made up of several layers, the first being deboned chicken that was sauteed in a mix of parsely, onion, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, s/p, then an egg mixture which is just beaten eggs incoporated in the sauce from the chicken, and the top layer is made of toasted or fried almonds that have been chopped with cinnamon, orange blossom water, and confectioner´s sugar. The fillings are layered between sheets of thin pastry called warka, but most people who can´t find it use fillo dough. The pastry layers are brushed with butter and wrapped up into a nice shape, then placed in the oven till golden brown. The final step is decorating the bstela with powdered sugar and cinnamon in a pretty, traditional design.
I never had the ocasion to try this dish in any of the Moroccan restaraunts in Granada, I guess I was busy. And even when my friend Rachel and I went for a two day trip across the pond to Morocco, we didn´t try it either. It is a dish ¨for royalty¨ reserved for special celebrations, weddings, feasts, and eids (religious holidays). However, I guess you can make it whenever you like, but it requires a good deal of patience and time, as well as the right ingredients and an open mind. Time passed and here I am two and a half years later, I still haven´t tried it. But a few weeks ago, a very sweet friend brought me a very sweet treat- bstela and several types of traditional sweets!
I was so excited to finally try this treat I had heard so much about and I was very pleasantly surprised. I was expecting something weird by the combination of chicken with with powdered sugar and cinnamon, but it really has a unique and amazing flavor and range of textures. I was officially a fan.
Bstela (left) and Moroccan cookies (right)


I became very interested all over again and began looking up recipes for Moroccan cuisine on the internet and came across a Moroccan girl´s youtube channel. She lives in the US and her video recipes are in English, she is adorable and her way of explaining how she cooks things is very easy to understand. Here is the link to her video recipe for bstela. This is a very good recipe. I have made several of her recipes and they all turned out very well.
Well, today, I got up the gumption to make bstela myself. So I gussied myself up in my polka dot apron, rolled up my sleeves, and got cookin´. It took me a while to do, about two hours of prep and cook time altogether. Everything went well and smooth, except I burned the first batch of almonds cause I left the room and forgot- ooops! I didn´t find it difficult to do, just time consuming. But it was completely worth it. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes to try new things- trust me, it´s not weird tasting at all- I come from a place where people eat frog legs, mudbugs, and raw oysters- this is a piece of cake, literally.
You may even want to try it with some of your left over turkey after Thanksgiving, although you probably won´t get quite as rich of a stock- maybe add in chicken stock instead of water. All I know is, you definitely need to try it. Mine turned out to be out of this world, and even better than my Moroccan friend´s version (don´t tell her I said that!)

I managed to hold myself back and snapped a quick photo before devouring my delicious masterpiece. It didn´t look like this for very long- we loved it. Here it is......