Baghrir

Ingredients

• 300 g fine semolina
• 7 g instant dried yeast
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 500 ml warm water, or enough to make a very liquid, pourable batter
• For the dipping sauce
• 100 g honey
• 50 g smen (fermented butter)

Method

1. 1
   Combine the semolina, yeast, and baking powder in a blender, add the warm water, and blend until the batter is completely smooth and free of lumps. The consistency must be very liquid — it should flow and level itself immediately when the blender is stopped — because a batter that holds a peak or moves sluggishly will trap the bubbles beneath its surface rather than letting them burst through as holes. Work the blender long enough that no graininess from the semolina remains.
2. 2
   Pour the batter into a bowl and leave it to proof at room temperature until the surface shows active bubbling and a faint sour note develops in the aroma, because it is the gas already alive in the batter that drives the holes open the moment it meets the hot pan. Absent bubbling at this stage means the holes simply will not form, however well everything else is done.
3. 3
   Set a dry non-stick pan over medium heat, adding no fat of any kind, because even a film of oil or butter prevents the batter from spreading freely and disrupts the even rise of bubbles to the surface. The pan is ready when a drop of water skips and evaporates on contact.
4. 4
   Pour a ladleful of batter into the centre of the pan and let it spread of its own accord into a thin, even round — do not touch or shake the pan, so the bubble structure that has built up during proofing is not disturbed before it has a chance to set. This is where the dish lives or dies: if the batter cannot flow freely, the holes cannot migrate to the surface, and no amount of extra cooking will recover them.
5. 5
   Cook on one side only, without flipping, watching as hundreds of small holes open across the surface where carbon dioxide bubbles burst through the batter. Continue until the top is completely set — no wet or glossy batter remains visible and the edges lift cleanly from the pan — because flipping even briefly collapses the holes and changes the texture of the crumb irreversibly.
6. 6
   For the dipping sauce, gently heat the honey and smen together in a small pan until the smen is fully melted and the mixture is warm and unified, so the pungent depth of the fermented butter is carried evenly through the honey rather than pooling in streaks. The sauce should smell of rich, funky butter against sweet honey; serve it alongside the warm baghrir for dunking.