Medfouna, pain farci du Tafilalet — Rissani, Morocco

Medfouna is a stuffed flatbread whose name means “buried,” a reference to the way it was once cooked in a hole dug in the sand and covered with hot embers. Visitors sometimes call it a Berber pizza, a comparison that says nothing about how it tastes: a thin, pliable bread dough encloses a filling of ground meat, onions, almonds, hard-boiled eggs, herbs and spices, and the whole thing bakes into a single flat, round loaf. It is reported from Rissani, a town at the edge of the Sahara in the Tafilalet region, and its market — among the oldest in Morocco — sells it hot in the late morning, cut into wedges for anyone passing through. Elsewhere in the region, the filling can lean on mutton fat instead of ground meat, or add kefta rather than plain minced meat. To prepare it, a soft bread dough is kneaded and left to rise while the filling is made by cooking onions and ground meat with spices, then off the heat, stirring in crushed almonds, chopped hard-boiled eggs and herbs. The dough is divided into two discs, one is spread with the filling and a little fat, and the second disc is laid over it, the edges rolled together to seal, before baking until the crust is firm and the filling is cooked through. At home, a hot oven stands in for the bed of embers used at the market, and the bread is judged mainly on how well the crust holds while staying thin enough to cut easily. Fillings vary from one cook to the next — more almonds, more herbs, a hotter spice mix — but the buried-bread method and the round, sealed shape stay constant.