Have you ever tried cooking Moroccan food? Perhaps you have that beautiful cookbook by Claudia Roden, Arabesque: Sumptuous Food from Morocco that I am just about to add to my cookbook collection? In the meantime, I do have an interesting alternative that covers all the Mediterranean countries, and from which I have made the odd tagine. But I knew little about the specific history and habits of Moroccan cuisine until I came across the Moroccan Culinary Arts Museum in Marrakech, next door to the Bahia Palace. Once the palace of a Grand Vizier, this museum not only gives a terrific lesson in the whys and wherefores of Moroccan cuisine but also offers cooking classes in its very professional, purpose built training kitchen. I took them up on that kind offer – but more of that later.
In brief, Moroccan cooking has been influenced by many different cultures over the centuries: Berber, Jewish, Sub Saharan, and Arab cuisines, with a soupçon of French and a pizca of Spanish. Although situated in the northwest corner of Africa, Morocco has more in common with Middle Eastern cuisine than with the rest of Africa, thanks to the Arabic and Muslim influences here.
As an Islamic country, the Moroccans have a no-alcohol, no-pork policy, particularly during Ramadan. But they drink gallons of mint tea in tiny glasses with both fresh and dried mint leaves and plenty of sugar. And while they don’t eat pork, they eat all sorts of other meat, fish and fowl. As well as the more familiar beef, lamb and chicken, we have passed stalls selling goat, pigeon and camel. (Did you know that some believe melted fat from a camel’s hump apparently works like Viagra if rubbed on the penis?) I have eaten goat, but have yet to taste camel. And last night, the pigeon pastilla (like a filo pastry pasty) served at our hotel was absolutely delicious. It is a sweet and savoury pastry full of spices and sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar. It was an unusual and surprising combination, but wonderfully tasty, although I first had to smother the One & Only’s cry of ‘flying rodents!’
Bread is an essential part of every meal and comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. (Oddly, we have eaten the best baguettes we have ever tasted, from a street stall in Fez. With an extra crunchy crust and the softest centre, it barely needed the local fresh cheese – Jben – to make a satisfying snack.) Khobz is the ubiquitous bread roll made from durum wheat semolina and served with anything and everything. A tafarnout is a traditional clay oven which gives its name to a pock-marked, slow-cooked flat Berber bread, best served with goats cheese and honey, but also great with a tagine. The beghrir looks like a large, thin crumpet and, like a crumpet, is best served hot soaked in butter and honey. Apparently, it’s a Ramadan specialty, so they have been piled high in the markets this week. Then there is medfouna, or Berber pizza, a flat round bread stuffed with onions and meat, and cooked in a special traditional clay and rocks oven. But my favourite is the msemen, a crepe folded several times and cooked on a cast iron plate, like an Indian paratha. I have joyfully eaten one for breakfast every day, slathered in honey or marmalade. And the savoury version, stuffed with spices, onion and parsley, has been a cheap and delicious snack for lunch.
Dinner typically begins with soup or chorba. Harira is one of the most popular: a heavy, winter soup based on chickpeas and lentils, and dosed with a thousand spices. Well, maybe not a thousand, but a lot. It is real comfort food, and popular during Ramadan for breaking the day’s fast at sunset. Fingers crossed, I will uncover the recipe while we are here.
Salads are unlike those we are used to, without a sign of a lettuce leaf, a raw tomato or a slice of avocado. Instead, there is a penchant for pickled vegetables such as carrots and cauliflower, and a couple of cooked vegetable ‘salads’ perfect for spreading on bread. Tektouka is like an Italian pepperonata, composed of red and green peppers and tomatoes, seasoned with paprika and cumin. Zaâlouk is a blend of eggplant and tomato, and often a touch of red pepper. Both of these make terrific accompaniments to meat dishes.
Following the information trail through the culinary museum, we came to the Spice Room, where a plethora of spices were displayed in sacks, along with a number of herbs used medicinally or in tea, such as pennyroyal, pomegranate flowers and verbena. Apparently, at least a dozen spices are combined to create the Moroccan ras el hanout. This exotic spice blend is popular across north Africa. It’s ingredients will vary, according to the region, the spice seller’s selection, or the family recipe. One traditional Moroccan version claims to contain some twenty seven different spices. Ras el hanout is used in many savoury dishes, rubbed on meat or fish, or stirred into couscous, pasta or rice.
Moroccans also love using dried fruit in their cooking, such as prunes, apricots, figs and sultanas, while dates are a favourite snack. And of course, preserved lemon is a big favourite. The recipe for preserved lemon has been around since the 13th century. It effectively sharpens the spices and offsets the richness of Moroccan tagines. I discovered preserved lemons more than a decade ago, and even started making my own, to the point when the One & Only eventually cried ‘Enough!’ and they had to be tucked away at the back of the pantry for a while. But I suspect they are about to make a comeback. And I have learned a few new ways to use them during cooking classes this week.
My first cooking class in Morocco was a formal affair at the Culinary Museum. We gathered in the shiny new teaching kitchen, where there is room for about twenty students. We were only five that day, and each of us had our own counter space with sink, gas burners and small pots of spices. Our teacher demonstrated what to do from her own kitchen at the front of the room. With no recipes provided, we were expected to remember each ingredient and every step. I took surreptitious notes on my phone. As someone had forgotten to tell me that the class would be conducted in French, I also had to get a little help from the mute sous-chef, or demand an often extraordinary translation from my neighbour with a smattering of English. So, I was quite proud of being able to follow most of the instructions and end up with something edible. Step by step, we each created our own lunch: a green pepper, garlic and preserved lemon ‘salad’ that tasted like a sharp Indian chutney; a chicken and vegetable couscous dish, and a plate of orange slices sprinkled in cinnamon. Fruit regularly appears at the end of a meal but desserts, as we know them, are few and far between.
The second class was a more casual event, conducted in the ‘Clock Kitchen’ at Café Clock, down an easily overlooked and very narrow lane at the top end of the Fez medina. And this time, thank goodness, the class was conducted in English! Here, we worked together as a team, sharing out the tasks between us – peeling, chopping, marinading, stirring, chatting – around a large, marble topped table. Souad, our madcap instructor, asked us to select three courses from the café’s menu. After much discussion, we chose harira soup, vegetable couscous with marinated lamb, and m’hanncha, an almond pastry. Then we followed Souad into the market to buy the ingredients, engaging in many a lively discussion with her favourite stall holders.
As soon as we got back to the kitchen, the eggplants were placed directly over a gas flame and left there, turning them occasionally, until the skins were charred, and the insides had become soft. Meanwhile, we whipped up a marinade for the lamb and peeled the vegetables to go with the couscous. Souad had chosen a seasonal array of vegetables: the usual carrot, turnip and zucchini; then fava beans and snap peas. Some made it into the dish, many got mislaid en route! Then we made up bowls of herbs and spices for the harira soup and the couscous.
Unlike the soak-in-boiling-water variety of couscous I use at home, this couscous was tossed in olive oil and salt, then steamed for twenty minutes. In Marrakech, we kept it steaming while we prepared the rest of the meal, occasionally emptying it into a dish to toss and aerate it, adding additional water and oil, before spooning it back into the steamer.
The m’hanncha (serpent cake) was made from almond paste flavoured with orange water and cinnamon and rolled in fresh filo pastry. I was given the marzipan to knead, blending in the orange blossom water and cinnamon. Then we all rolled out a lump of marzipan into a snake, before rolling it up like a carpet in a sheet of filo pastry. It was then twisted into a scroll and baked in the oven for about 40 minutes until golden. Unlike baklava, another nut and filo pastry treat, the m’hanncha was not terribly sweet or particularly moist. I would add a scoop of ice cream or a spoon of clotted cream, but dairy has a limited presence in Moroccan cuisine.
Two very different mornings spent in the kitchen, followed by two delicious and enormous lunches. Both required a post-prandial siesta. Did it stop us eating dinner? Actually no, but that was only partially due to gluttony and mostly due to the fact that our chef at Dar El Galia was so brilliant, we were on a mission to work through her fabulous menu before we left. And I think we succeeded… almost!