Sfenj (سفنج)

The dough is supposed to frighten you a little. Sfenj begins as a wet, slack yeast dough that clings to the hand and refuses the neatness of bread. That's why it fries into those open, chewy rings with bubbled edges. Tighten it with flour and it becomes a dry little bread with a hole.

Wet your hands, pinch the dough, pierce it with your thumbs, stretch, and lower it close to the oil. The water on your fingers matters: it lets you shape without adding flour, and flour would toughen the dough and burn before the sfenj is cooked. This is the gesture the dish lives by.

In Moroccan medinas, sfenj belongs to morning. The sfenji (sfenj seller) threads the hot rings onto palm string, and someone carries them home beside mint tea or coffee, enough for whoever is awake and whoever knocks. This is la cuisine du lien (the cooking of connection): little money, open hands, one more ring for one more person.