M'hamsa substitutes

Machine-made semolina pearls that are cooked like pasta and stay chewy, exactly as m'hamsa does.

Best for

m'hamsa salads, soups and broths, serving under stews and tagines, pilafs

The behaviour is right, which is the important part: it simmers, absorbs liquid, and keeps its bite instead of turning fluffy. What changes is character. The pearls are round, uniform and slightly larger, and being machine-extruded from plain dough they taste blander and come out springier and smoother, where m'hamsa is knobbly, nuttier and more toothsome. Toast the dry pearls in a tablespoon of olive oil until they smell like popcorn before adding liquid, and you close most of that gap.

Small irregular toasted semolina balls from Sardinia, made in much the same way as m'hamsa.

Best for

salads, brothy soups, seafood dishes, anything that calls for m'hamsa

This is arguably the closest match of anything you can buy, because it is also hand-shaped semolina that has been toasted rather than just dried. It is slightly larger and more emphatically toasted, so the dish comes out a shade nuttier and darker. Cooking time and liquid ratio are near-identical. If you spot it in an Italian deli, buy it and keep it for exactly this purpose.

Rice-shaped pasta with a similar size, bite and cooking method.

Best for

salads, soups, side dishes, baked dishes

It cooks in a comparable time and keeps a pleasant firm bite, so structurally it works. It is more obviously pasta: slicker on the outside, a little softer in the middle, and some brands are made from soft wheat flour rather than durum semolina, which makes them softer still. Cook it in well-salted water, drain, and toss immediately with oil so it does not clump. Toasting it dry in a pan first also helps a lot.

Cracked parboiled wheat with real chew and a nutty flavour.

Best for

salads, grain bowls, stuffings, serving under braised meat

Use the coarse grade, number three or four, not fine bulgur. It gives you the chew and the nuttiness convincingly, and it holds up in leftovers as well as m'hamsa does. The difference is that bulgur is wholegrain, so the dish tastes wheatier and slightly earthy and looks browner, pulling the salad towards tabbouleh territory. Simmer covered for twelve to fifteen minutes and rest off the heat.

Fine pre-steamed semolina granules, the couscous most supermarkets sell.

Best for

serving under a stew where fluffiness is acceptable, quick weeknight versions

Read this before you use it: do not simmer instant couscous the way you would simmer m'hamsa, or you will get a pot of paste. Pour hot stock over it off the heat at a ratio of one to one and a quarter, cover for five minutes, then fork it through. The flavour is in the right family, but the texture is soft, fine and fluffy rather than chewy, so a m'hamsa salad becomes a fine-grained couscous salad and the dressing soaks in rather than clinging. Acceptable for flavour, genuinely wrong for texture.

Tiny pasta shapes, neutral in flavour, similar in scale.

Best for

soups, children's meals, brothy dishes

These are the right size and cook in the right way, and in a soup they are almost indistinguishable in function. They bring no toasted or nutty flavour of their own, so the dish loses m'hamsa's character even if it keeps its structure. Toasting the dry pasta in oil until golden before adding stock makes a surprising difference here and takes two minutes.