Moroccan CooksRecipes from Morocco
Main Dishes

Chaariya bel Matisha — Moroccan Vermicelli in Tomato Sauce

By The Moroccan Cooks KitchenUpdated

Fine wheat vermicelli cooked straight in a tomato broth with turmeric, ginger and coriander until it drinks the lot. No meat, one pan, on the table in forty minutes.

Moroccan chaariya bel matisha — fine vermicelli in a turmeric and tomato sauce, scattered with coriander, in a white dish
Prep
10 min
Cook
35 min
Total
45 min
Serves
6
Difficulty
Easy

This is Tuesday-night food in Morocco, and almost nobody writes it down. Fine vermicelli goes into a tomato broth and cooks in it — not boiled in water and sauced afterwards, but left to drink the broth until every strand has taken the colour of the turmeric and the tomato.

It is cheap, it has no meat in it at all, and it is the kind of thing a household makes when dinner needs to be good rather than impressive. The whole dish is three tomatoes, an onion, a clove of garlic, a handful of coriander and a bag of vermicelli.

There are two things to get right and neither is difficult. The sauce has to be cooked down until it turns from bright red to a deep rust — that colour is the timer, not the clock. And the water that goes in afterwards must be boiling, because cold water stops the pan dead and the vermicelli turns gluey while it waits for the heat to come back.

Ingredients

Servings

Makes 6 servings

The sauce

To finish

Instructions

  1. Everything into the cold pan

    Put the grated tomato, tomato purée, olive oil, grated onion, garlic, chopped coriander, ginger, turmeric, pepper and salt into a wide pot together. There is no sweating the onion first here — it all starts at once, which is how it is done at home.

  2. Cook the sauce until the colour turns

    Set it over a medium heat and let it bubble, stirring now and then. Watch the colour rather than the clock: it starts bright red and is ready when it has darkened to a deep rust and thickened enough that the oil begins to separate at the edges. Around 15 minutes, but trust the colour.

  3. Add boiling water

    Pour in the boiling water and bring it back to a rolling boil. The water must already be boiling. Cold water drops the temperature of the pot, and the vermicelli sits in warm liquid going soft and gluey while it waits — which is the difference between separate strands and a paste.

  4. In goes the vermicelli

    Scatter the vermicelli into the boiling broth and stir it through so nothing clumps on the way in. Keep the heat at a steady simmer rather than a hard boil.

  5. Stir every five minutes

    This is the only real work in the dish. Every five minutes, stir it from the bottom — vermicelli sinks and catches, and once it has caught the burnt taste runs through the whole pot. Keep going for about 15 minutes, until the strands are tender and most of the liquid has gone into them.

  6. Check it before it goes dry

    It should be loose and glossy, not dry — there should still be sauce moving around the strands when you tip the pan. If it has tightened too far, add a ladle of boiling water and stir it through. Taste for salt now.

  7. Serve

    Tip it into a wide dish and spread it flat. It goes to the table as it is, in the middle, and everyone eats from their own side of the plate.

Cook’s notes

  • Stir every five minutes and mean it. Vermicelli sinks to the bottom and sticks, and a pot that has caught tastes burnt all the way through — there is no rescuing it.
  • Boiling water, never cold. This is the single most common mistake and it costs you the texture.
  • Judge the sauce by its colour, not by a timer. Bright red means it is not ready; deep rust with the oil separating means it is.
  • Use the short, fine vermicelli sold for soup, not long angel hair broken up. The short strands cook evenly and hold their shape in the broth.
  • This is the plain version, with no meat at all. Households that want it richer poach chicken pieces in the sauce before the water goes in, and the method is otherwise unchanged.
  • It reheats, but it keeps drinking liquid as it sits. Add a splash of boiling water in the pan and stir it loose before it goes back to the table.

Recipe information

Prep time
10 min
Cook time
35 min
Total time
45 min
Servings
6
Calories
390 kcal per serving
Cuisine
Moroccan
Course
Main Dish
Difficulty
Easy
Keywords
moroccan vermicelli, chaariya bel matisha, moroccan vermicelli tomato, moroccan pasta recipe, vegan moroccan dinner

Nutrition is an estimate per serving, calculated from the ingredient list. Values vary with brands, cuts and portion size.

chaariyavermicellitomatoweeknightveganone pancheap

Frequently asked questions

What is chaariya?
Chaariya is the Moroccan word for vermicelli — fine, short strands of wheat pasta. It turns up in several dishes, sweet and savoury: steamed with sugar and cinnamon as seffa, in soup, and here, cooked straight in a tomato broth as an everyday dinner.
Is this a soup or a pasta dish?
Neither exactly. The vermicelli cooks in the broth and absorbs most of it, so it arrives loose and saucy rather than soupy or dry. If you serve it and it is dry, it has gone too far — a ladle of boiling water stirred through brings it back.
Can I add chicken or meat?
Yes, and plenty of households do. Poach chicken pieces in the sauce before you add the water, and give them long enough to cook through while the sauce darkens. The version here is the plain one, which is what gets made on an ordinary evening.
Why did mine stick and taste burnt?
Because it was not stirred often enough. Vermicelli settles on the base of the pot where the heat is, and once a layer catches the burnt flavour spreads through everything above it. Stir from the bottom every five minutes without fail, and keep the heat at a simmer rather than a hard boil.
Can I use ordinary spaghetti broken up?
It will cook, but it will not be the same dish. Long pasta broken into pieces gives uneven lengths that cook at different rates and tangle instead of staying separate. Fine soup vermicelli is cheap and sold everywhere — it is worth using the right one.

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