Madfouna

Madfouna means buried, which describes the method: a disc of bread dough is filled with minced or chopped lamb or beef, onion, parsley, almonds, hard-boiled egg and spices, sealed with a second disc, and then baked - traditionally in a pit of hot sand and embers, covered over, so it cooks slowly from all sides in the residual heat, which is the desert solution to having no oven. It comes out as a thick stuffed loaf cut into wedges and eaten with the hands. The tourist name Berber pizza is used on menus in Merzouga and is not what anyone calls it locally. Rissani is where it is best - a row of places on the souk make it to order and it takes an hour or so, which is why ordering ahead helps. Restaurants now mostly bake it in a conventional oven; a camp in the dunes doing it properly in sand is the version worth seeking out.

What you actually see

• Baked in sand - a sealed dough disc cooked in a pit of hot sand and embers.
• A stuffed loaf - lamb, onion, almonds and egg between two layers of bread.
• Rissani as the source - the souk restaurants that make it to order.
• A tourist name - Berber pizza used on menus and by nobody local.

When to go

October to April. A long meal; order an hour ahead.

Honest expectations

Most restaurant versions are oven-baked rather than sand-baked. It takes about an hour to make - order before you are hungry. It is heavy and a whole one feeds several. Summer heat in the Tafilalt makes the whole exercise unpleasant.

Nearby

Rissani's souk is where to order it; Merzouga is south-east.