Tadeffi or Dadeffi is a typical Moroccan soup made during cold days especially for people suffering from cold, asthma, problems with digestion, migraine, PMS etc..It is also highly recommended for women who just gave birth as it’s invigorating.

Tadeffi is a family recipe shared between family members in Fes, Meknes and The Mountain region near these two cities. It’s a sort of mother-to-daughter thing..

“La Boîte à merveilles” is a  quite famous autobiographical novel written in 1954 by the Moroccan author Ahmed Sefrioui. Chapter IX, he refers to Tadeffi as a mean to make Sidi Mohammed (the hairdresser in the story) feel better.. It’s a nice story by the way. It’s been taught at schools back home.

Tadeffi soup is made with humble ingredients. However, pennyroyal remains its key ingredient. This plant is also used in Moroccan tea and I love it. It’s so refreshing as it’s somewhere between mint, spearmint and peppermint but on a milder note.

In Morocco, pennyroyal is referred to as “Fleeyou” or “menthe pouliot” or “menthe sauvage”
When my baby boy is sneezy, I give him a hot milk with infused pennyroyal and he does sleep like a baby for really, same goes for his father whenever he gets a mild cough. These are traditional remedies I still stick to since they’re all natural and have proven their efficiency.

Left: fresh pennyroyal. Right: drying it in the shade

I’m planning to grow fresh pennyroyal here in London. But today’s soup needs the dried version which I didn’t forget to bring from Morocco this time. 1/2 kg makes a lot of dried pennyroyal so we’re using it regularly, at least with the Moroccan tea.

A properly dried pennyroyal which has kept a bit of its green colour as well as its refreshing smell

Back to today’s soup. Tadeffi is made of semolina (fine wheat semolina or barley grits) or just plain flour then some good things: a lot of garlic, ground pepper, pennyroyal. Some additions such as saffron, ginger, thyme and oregano are perfectly fine and depend on the region. The soup is then served with a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil.

Ingredients
Serves 6
Prep: 5 min- Cooking: About 30-40 min

• 50g of semolina (I used fine semolina, it gives a better texture)
• 1.6 to 2 l water (adjust according to absorption and to your preference)
• 4 cloves to a head of garlic (whole and unpeeled)
• 1 tsp of ground black pepper
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 to 3 tbsps of dried pennyroyal, toasted in a pan for 1 minute and ground to powder

Optional

• 1 tsp of ground ginger
• 1 tsp of dried thyme or and oregano
• A good pinch of saffron threads

Serve with

• Olive oil

Grind toasted dried pennyroyal into a powder before using it in the soup

Preparation

Simmering the mix before adding the semolina

It’s good to keep some bits of garlic