Boutheina B Salem’s Omek Houria
Sweet-sharp Tunisian carrot salad garnished with tuna, eggs and olives, and served with crusty bread. Words by Boutheina B Salem. Photos by Emli Bendixen.
Good morning and welcome to Vittles! Today, we are publishing our Big Salad Summer Recipe Supplement, comprising four recipes for main course salads by some of our favourite cooks. Here, Boutheina B Salem offers a caraway scented Tunisian carrot salad garnished with boiled eggs, olives, and tuna. To read the rest of the Summer Recipe Supplement, please click below:
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Omek houria is one of the few Tunisian dishes whose name tells you absolutely nothing about what’s on the plate. Even if you speak Arabic, ‘your mum the fairy’ doesn’t exactly scream ‘carrot salad’. Yet that’s exactly what it is.
Omek houria is one of Tunisia’s most beloved salads, a fixture of countless lunch tables, wedding buffets and restaurant menus. As a child, I couldn’t stand it. My mother tried to convince me that the carrots were good for my eyesight, but that argument got her nowhere. My grandmother had a better strategy: she told me that omek houria would make me beautiful like a fairy. The fairy comes from one of the many stories surrounding the dish. According to my grandmother, who got it from her grandmother, a mermaid was the first to make omek houria. She dyed her hair with henna, giving it the same bright orange colour as carrots.
Morocco has its carrot salads too – generally involving cumin, which settles into the earthy sweetness of the carrots. But Tunisia takes a different route: we use caraway, which feels brighter, greener, almost citrusy. It wakes up the lemon juice and parsley, giving omek houria its characteristic freshness.
Omek houria is a simple salad, and simple dishes have nowhere to hide. I won’t tell you to hunt down heritage carrots or fancy lemons, but it’s worth spending a little more on a good olive oil, which will pull everything together: the sweetness of the carrots, the heat of the harissa, the sharpness of the lemon and the punch of garlic.
Omek Houria
