Morocco | Main dish

Chicken Pastilla

Name: Chicken Pastilla
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 75 min
Total time: 125 min
Yield: 8 slices
Cuisine: Morocco, North Africa
Ingredients: 1¼ kg bone-in chicken pieces; 2 large onions, finely chopped; 2 tbsp butter; 2 tsp ground ginger; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; ½ tsp turmeric; ½ cup parsley and cilantro, chopped; 5 whole eggs, beaten; 2 cups blanched almonds, toasted and chopped; 3 tbsp powdered sugar; 12 sheets phyllo pastry, thawed; ½ cup melted butter, for brushing; salt and black pepper, to taste

A Moroccan savory-sweet pie of spiced chicken, soft egg sauce, toasted almonds, cinnamon, and crisp pastry.

Country

Morocco

Region

North Africa

Time

125 min

Serves

Level

hard

Explore Morocco recipes Browse AfroKitchen

Recipe overview

What to know before you cook

Chicken Pastilla is Morocco's celebration pie: savory chicken cooked with onion and warm spices, eggs stirred into the reduced sauce, almonds sweetened with cinnamon, all wrapped in thin pastry and dusted lightly at the end.

What the dish tastes like

A Moroccan savory-sweet pie of spiced chicken, soft egg sauce, toasted almonds, cinnamon, and crisp pastry.

When to cook it

Best for Best for Eid tables, weddings, special dinners, or a showpiece weekend meal., with a hard cooking level and about 125 minutes total.

What to serve alongside it

A simple salad, mint tea, olives, or a light soup.

Regional lane

Tagines and special mains. Slow-cooked, spiced, sweet-savory, and celebratory dishes that anchor the table.

Chef watch-outs

Rushing the base before the raw edge has cooked out.
Adding all seasoning early and forgetting to adjust at the end.
Cooking on heat that is too high once the dish should be steaming or simmering.

How you know it is ready

The aroma should smell rounded rather than raw or sharp.
Oil, sauce, broth, or steam should look settled and deliberate.
The final texture should match the dish style before you plate it.

Pantry lane

preserved lemon, green olives, saffron, ras el hanout, semolina

Chef board

Build the table around Chicken Pastilla

A simple salad, mint tea, olives, or a light soup.

Best route from here

Tagines and special mains

Collections to keep cooking

Moroccan Salads, Soups, and Breads

Servings 8

Scale the dish before you shop, then use the checklist while you cook.

Ingredients

For 8 slices

Main dish

How to cook it

Step-by-step method

Keep the rhythm calm, watch the texture, and adjust seasoning at the end.

Back to Morocco

4 steps 125 min total hard

Cook the chicken

Simmer chicken with onion, butter, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, herbs, salt, pepper, and a little water until tender.

braise chicken 45:00

Make the egg sauce

Remove and shred the chicken. Reduce the onion sauce until thick, then stir in beaten eggs over low heat until softly set.

The filling should be moist, not runny.

thicken sauce 15:00

Prepare almonds

Mix toasted chopped almonds with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

mix almonds 05:00

Layer and bake

Brush phyllo sheets with butter in a round pan. Layer chicken, egg sauce, and almonds, fold pastry over, brush again, and bake until golden.

Cool 10 minutes before dusting with a little sugar and cinnamon.

bake 30:00

Traditional versions may use pigeon and warqa pastry. Home versions often use chicken and phyllo for access.

Chicken Pastilla

What to know before you cook

Build the table around Chicken Pastilla

Step-by-step method

More AfroKitchen dishes from the same food atlas

Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons & Olives

Bessara

Chebakia

Harira