Msoki — Tunisia

Msoki, also spelled msouki, is a stew built from a wide mix of spring vegetables and greens cooked together with meat, prepared by Jewish communities from Tunisia. Among Algerian Jews a related dish carries the name remou. It is reported as the dish set for the Passover seder in Tunisian Jewish households, and as the dish eaten by Algerian Jews on the seventh day of the same festival, though families also cook it at other points in the year outside the holiday. The stew brings together a long list of vegetables in season around spring — artichokes, fava beans, peas, spinach or chard, and fresh herbs — simmered slowly with pieces of lamb or beef until the vegetables break down into a thick, deep-green base. Hard-boiled eggs are often added toward the end, and the dish is left to cook gently for a long stretch so the flavours of the many vegetables merge into one. Because it draws on whatever spring vegetables are at hand, msoki varies noticeably from one household to the next in exactly which greens and vegetables go into the pot, and in how long and how smooth the final stew is cooked down. This entry follows a common version built on artichokes, fava beans and spinach with lamb.