How To Prepare Authentic Algerian Tamina

Tamina, or "semolina cake," is a sweet recipe traditionally served on the day of Mawlid Ennabawi echarif – a religious holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet of Islam Muhammad. This cake is also served to celebrate a birth.

Tamina, Tamena, Taqnata or Takneta quick and unmissable easy recipe is a delicious pastry, traditionally served in Algeria and Morocco on the occasion of a birth or mawlid nabawi (commemoration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH). It is a paste composed of toasted semolina, golden but not brown, melted honey and butter.

There is another Algerian pastry called tamina (Rfiss Tousni), but this one is made with grilled semolina, butter and date paste (gharss). A delicious sweetness to accompany with a good mint tea or a latte at snack time. Tamina garnished with pine nuts for more delicacy.

It is a source of vitamins since it is composed only of natural foods good for our health. 

Variants

Tamina is prepared in different ways depending on the region, including:

• Taminet El Ghars, called maakra in the south, r'fiss tmar in Constantine and kaabouche in Orania. This variant is prepared on the basis of roasted semolina, date paste and butter.
• Tamina Baïda, translated as "white tamina", prepared in the east of the country. It is based on lightly roasted semolina, which gives it its white color, butter and icing sugar.
• Tamminet Ellouz, translated as "almond tamina ", made with almonds scented with rose water, milk, sugar. It is cut into a diamond shape and sprinkled with icing sugar. This preparation originated in Constantine.
• Tamminet L'hror, which is prepared with roasted semolina, honey and butter. It has the particularity of being made up of a traditional Algerian spice blend called hror.

Secrets For A Good Temina

Although the Tamina recipe is very simple and easy, but many miss the recipe, there is so that the semolina is too hard, sometimes the tamina rejects all its fat…

I've never had this problem, because I've always applied these advice to make a good tamina:

• Already, you have to choose a good semolina, and medium semolina is the best in this case, not too fine semolina, nor too coarse semolina.
• brown the semolina in small quantities in a heavy-bottomed pan, because putting 2 kilos of semolina in a pan will not speed things up and you will quickly finish your preparation. No, you will cook the semolina badly, you will have a quick cooking in places (or even burn the semolina in one place) and very raw semolina elsewhere.
• make sure that all the semolina is well browned evenly, you can sift the semolina to remove the burnt lumps, or the lumps formed by the steam rejected by the semolina during the browning.
• let the grilled semolina cool well, before introducing it to the hot (but not hot) honey and butter mixture
• If you use natural honey, be aware that honey should not be heated above 40 ˚C, otherwise it will lose all these enzymes. so melt the butter first, then add the quantity of honey, mix to have a homogeneous mixture, and then add the cold semolina.
• If the semolina is hot, that's when you're going to have a tamina that's too hard!