The pastry dough shown here is warqa, thin, flexible sheets of dough used to make Moroccan delicacies such as bastilla and ktefa. Outside of Morocco you may see this dough referred to as "brick pastry."
In this photo, I'm using homemade warqa to enclose a savory filling for Moroccan briouats, which will be deep fried before serving. Making your own warqa in Morocco is not very common; few Moroccans are trained or skilled in the art of its traditional preparation, which requires rapidly and repeatedly dabbing a sticky dough against a hot pan until the surface is covered with a sheer layer of dough. The dough quickly cooks into a thin sheet of pastry. Because the dabbing technique is difficult to master, most Moroccans buy their warqa from a vendor in the souk, who prepares it on the spot and to order.
In recent years, however, a much easier method has been developed to prepare warqa at home. Moroccan food expert and cookbook author Paula Wolfert first introduced me to this method, and since then I've seen it described and demonstrated elsewhere, including a popular Moroccan cooking show called Choumicha. The following pages show the modern, simplified technique for making warqa.
If you'd like a printable version without photos, see the Homemade Warqa Recipe.
