Moroccan Gazelle Horns

I had already presented you a recipe of gazelle horns. But I especially wanted to see and learn the technique of Moroccan gazelle horns, with their paper-thin dough, a little crunchy to reveal the almond, cinnamon and orange blossom heart so tender. It is in Morocco, on the spot that I went to meet Touria, Lalla Myriam and her mother, Lalla Fatima, true grandmother as we love them: holders of the secrets of the kitchen of their country. I had been looking to go to Morocco to cook for years. Patience was rewarded as it far exceeded my expectations…! You will quickly discover all the recipes we have made there: pastilla, harira, crepes mille trous, lemon chicken, mkharka, Berber couscous…

It is with great joy that I share with you, with the complicity of Touria, Lalla Fatima and Lalla Myriam, this first recipe: gazelle horns. This recipe is absolutely perfect and will be tasted, as it should, with a mint tea…

I give you here the recipe as Lalla Fatima learned it from her grandmother, who herself had learned it from her grandmother etc… I was told that it was important to use sugar cubes rather than powdered sugar. But above all (and this I saw was important), that you had to grind the almonds yourself. The fact of plunging them in boiling water to peel them, gives them a softness that we never find… Afterwards, for the sake of convenience, you may prefer to use almond powder and powdered sugar. But if you want the perfection of these little gazelle horns (which are called “sabots de gazelles” in Arabic…), you have all the elements in the recipe below!

Recipe for about fifty small gazelle horns:

Dough:

-300g of flour type 45

-150g of water (more or less)

-1 knob of soft butter

-2 teaspoons of orange blossom

-1 pinch of salt

Prank call:

-500g of peeled almonds

-375g of sugar cubes

-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

-1 to 2 tablespoons of orange blossom water

-2 good tablespoons of melted butter

-some gum arabic crystals (6-7)

Oil for spreading

Start by preparing the dough.

Put the flour in the bowl of a food processor with the orange blossom and salt.

It is best to add water sparingly and knead with your hands at first, as you need to “feel” the dough. Once the flour has “drunk” enough water and you are sure of the consistency, you can knead with the robot (or by hand…).

The problem with adding water without first kneading the dough yourself is that you risk adding too much water…

Add a knob of soft butter halfway through the kneading process.

Knead for about 10-15 minutes by hand or in a food processor with the dough hook.
Then divide the dough into 90g pieces (roughly!) and place them in an oiled dish. The dough pieces themselves must also be oiled. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for at least one hour in a cool place.

Prepare the stuffing:

Peel the almonds by plunging them into boiling water for 5 minutes. It is then enough to peel them. It goes pretty fast actually!

Put the dried almonds, with the sugar cubes, broken in a mortar.

Put everything in a meat grinder.

The stuffing must be passed through a second time to obtain a nice dough.

Add cinnamon and melted butter.

Mix well by hand, then add the orange blossom water .

Here is the gum arabic. On the picture, there are too many of them! Just take some crystals. Basically, this is a good pinch.

Grind the gum arabic into powder in a mortar.

Lalla Fatima recommended me to make small horns of gazelles, because when they are too big, people do not finish them… I don’t know, but big or small, I always finish my gazelle horns.

It is better to weigh the pellets to make sure you always have the same ones. Here, the dumplings weigh exactly 17g… It’s up to you to see which size fits best.

Then you just have to roll the dumplings between the palms of both hands soaked in orange blossom water, to obtain these small oblong dumplings.

Take a ball of dough that has been resting and oil the work surface (a marble or better: a wooden board, especially cedar!). Also oil the ball a little.

Roll out the dough with a rolling pin fairly thinly into a rectangle. Finish by hand… Let me explain: you just have to take the edges of the dough and pull it slightly outwards to make it even thinner. The final thickness of the dough is clearly visible on the picture.

Then place two or three stuffing rolls lengthwise on the dough.

Fold the dough over the sausages and press the filling into the base of the dough so that it is pre-sealed.

With a serrated wheel, cut the horns to separate them from each other.

Take a horn and pull it up with a sharp blow to separate it from the rest of the dough. Then flatten the horn between the fingers to give it its final shape. Using the rolling pin, cut off any excess dough that may appear.

Do the same with all other horns. We put three sausages on the dough, but there is still plenty of dough, so we can continue to make horns with the rest of the rolled out dough. Simply level the dough with the rolling pin and proceed as explained above.

Place gazelle horns on an oiled or parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Then let it “crust” or dry for… 24 hours! This is a very important step to obtain gazelle horns with a thin crispy layer.

On the day of cooking: pierce with a needle three small holes on the top of the horns, this will avoid the formation of an air bubble that would burst in the oven!

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 160°C. You have to adapt according to your oven. The horns must be blond but not too colored.