B'stilla (Pastilla)

Morocco (Fès, Andalusian-Moorish culinary tradition; 'bastilla' from Castilian 'pastilla')

B'stilla is Morocco's most architecturally complex dish — a large, round pie of ultra-thin warqa pastry filled with a layer of sweet-savoury braised pigeon (or chicken) in saffron sauce with egg, topped with a layer of fried almonds with cinnamon and sugar, all enclosed in more warqa layers, baked until golden, and dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. The sweet-savoury contrast within a single pastry — rich braised bird, almond sugar, and crisp pastry — is the Andalusian-Moorish synthesis at its most refined. Warqa (paper-thin Moroccan pastry) is made by daubing wet dough repeatedly onto a hot pan surface; it requires specialist skill and is now often replaced with filo pastry. B'stilla is served at weddings and major celebrations — it is the grandest dish in the Moroccan repertoire.

• Shares the sweet-savoury meat pie structure with British mince pie (historical sweet-meat combination), Persian bastani, and Yemeni saltah pie; the warqa-almond-meat layering parallels Ottoman börek in its thin-pastry construction.

Consumed as a first course at Moroccan banquets before the tagine; the sweet icing sugar dusting against the savoury filling is one of the most deliberately contrasted flavour pairings in the cuisine; mint tea served with b'stilla at celebrations.