This is one of those recipes that I been waiting to make from Dorie’s book, so when I saw it go up as the choices for our January FFwD group, I did a happy little dance.

Dorie gives us a quick historical lesson on the dish by telling us that this dish is one of the legendary dishes of Morocco that the French has adapted and made their own. Upon further investigation on my part, some say that Arabs brought it to Morocco from the Middle East, and some even venture to say that because of the delicate pastry sheets that incase it, specifically from Persia.  This dish has been around!  But whoever took the first crack at this dish; it is known today as typical of Morocco and highly regarded as a national dish of that country.

This elaborate meat pie is traditionally made with pigeon or squab, since squabs are often hard to get, chicken is more often use as the substitute.  Another substitute is using the phyllo sheets as the blanket that covers this entire filling.  In morocco they use a combination of crisp layers of the crepe-like warka dough, also known as Feuilles de brick, which is a thinner cousin of the phyllo dough.  In some cases you can find them in Middle Eastern markets or simple buy it online via amazon.com.