Les Moulins Mahjoub: The Tunisian Family Behind the Harissa Jar
Les Moulins Mahjoub is the Mahjoub family's mill and farm in Tebourba, a town in Tunisia's Medjerda valley, and its Traditional Harissa is sun-dried chilies ground with dried garlic, caraway, coriander, salt and extra virgin olive oil. That recipe shares its core with the home method UNESCO described when it added Tunisian harissa to its intangible cultural heritage list in 2022. The harissa complete guide covers how long an opened jar keeps and how hot harissa runs.
The family and the valley
The Mahjoubs describe their roots in Tebourba as going back to the 18th century, and the company's own tagline reads "since 1896." Their extra virgin olive oil is pressed on granite millstones in a first cold pressing. Peppers, tomatoes, artichokes, garlic and onions all come from the family's El Mehrine farm. The producer's account of the work is short: picked at dawn, prepared in the afternoon, processed the same day.
It is a large family business in the literal sense. Their US importer, the Rogers Collection, describes Majid Mahjoub running promotion and marketing and managing the farm alongside seven sisters, two brothers and three nephews, with Ghazi Mahjoub as agricultural manager. In 2019 the importer described every one of the Mahjoub harissas as organic. The family's own line on it: people's health depends on the health of the earth. The importer also describes the water left over from olive pressing being used to irrigate the groves, and nitrogen-rich fava beans tilled into the soil between harvests.
What goes into the Traditional Harissa
The producer lists the Traditional Harissa as sun-dried chili peppers ground with dried garlic, caraway, salt, coriander and extra virgin olive oil. The list has no vinegar, tomato, thickener or citric acid.
UNESCO's inscription describes the household method: chilies dried in the sun, split, stalks and seeds removed, washed, then ground and seasoned with salt, garlic and coriander, using a pestle and mortar or a hand-cranked meat mincer, and stored in glass or pottery. The inscription notes that the preparation is usually done by women, in a festive family or neighborhood setting.
| Tunisian home method (UNESCO) | Mahjoub Traditional Harissa | |
|---|---|---|
| Chilies | Sun-dried, split, stalks and seeds removed, washed | Sun-dried chili peppers |
| Grinding | Pestle and mortar or manual meat mincer | Ground |
| Seasoning | Salt, garlic, coriander | Salt, dried garlic, coriander, caraway |
| Fat | Not specified | Extra virgin olive oil |
| Vessel | Glass or pottery | Jar, 185 g (also 340 g and 700 g) |
The additions are caraway and olive oil; the chili, salt, garlic and coriander are the same four the UNESCO description lists. The How to Buy Harissa guide covers reading a harissa label line by line.
Twenty pounds of peppers for one
Drying is where the labor concentrates. The importer reports that for every 100 pounds of fresh peppers the Mahjoubs end up with 5 pounds of dried. That is a 20-to-1 reduction: a kilogram of dried chili means twenty kilograms picked, and each ounce in the grinder started as a pound and a quarter of fresh pepper on the plant.
The five Mahjoub harissas
The family makes five harissas in all.
| Harissa | Pepper | What else goes in | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional | Sun-dried chili | Dried garlic, caraway, salt, coriander, olive oil | The all-purpose jar: stews, eggs, couscous, marinades |
| Baklouti | Red baklouti peppers | Mahjoub olive oil, garlic, salt, coriander, caraway | The baklouti pepper as the headline |
| Sweet Pepper (h'rouss style) | Fresh peppers | Lightly crushed fresh peppers (the meaning of h'rouss, per the producer) | A spread for bread and sandwiches |
| Sundried Tomato | Fresh chilies | Chopped sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil | Pasta, grain bowls |
| Lemon, Mint and Capers | Chili | Salted wild capers, preserved lemon, dried mint | Fish, roast vegetables, a finishing spoonful |
Harissa at the table
The importer's account of eating with the Mahjoubs runs through everyday Tunisian food. Lablabi is chickpeas in broth over torn bread, finished with capers, olive oil, cumin, harissa, often a coddled egg and chopped pickled lemon. Ojja, as Majid's wife Onsa makes it, is eggs cooked in olive oil, tomato puree, sun-dried garlic and harissa, a close cousin of the shakshuka with matbucha recipe. Majid Mahjoub's take on the Tunisian fricassee, as his importer describes it, is a roll toasted in olive oil, spread with harissa and filled with tuna, egg, potato and olives. In these dishes harissa is cooked into or spread under the food; the hot sauce guide covers the bottled sauces.
Harissa and preserved lemon
The Mahjoubs also make natural preserved lemons, whole, sliced and as a paste. Majid Mahjoub's own advice, as his importer reports it, is that nothing goes better with harissa than preserved lemon. The Morocco in the Pantry guide covers preserved lemon from the other side of the Maghreb.
For the pairing Majid Mahjoub recommends, the Traditional Harissa (shop Les Moulins Mahjoub Traditional Harissa) goes on the table beside the family's natural preserved lemons (shop Les Moulins Mahjoub Natural Preserved Lemons).
Sources & Further Reading
- Les Moulins Mahjoub: the family, Tebourba and the mill
- Les Moulins Mahjoub: product range and harissa ingredients
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Harissa, knowledge, skills and culinary and social practices (2022)
- Rogers Collection: the harissas of Les Moulins Mahjoub
- Rogers Collection: Les Moulins Mahjoub producer profile
