Cooking tips learned from a trip to an exotic Moroccan city | Travel
Imagine yourself in Morocco, sitting in the lobby of an elegantly furnished hotel, carefully sipping steaming hot mint tea, which has ceremonially been poured by a dashingly handsome waiter from an ornate silver teapot held high above his head into a tiny drinking glass.
Welcome to Marrakech, one of Morocco’s most exotic cities. Known as the “ochre city” because of the yellow-red clay the buildings are constructed of, Marrakech is filled with both grandeur and charm, from its mosques to its medina (old town) surrounded by thick walls, in the old fortified central part of this magical African city.
We had just arrived in this intriguing country and were waiting to check into our home-away-from-home for a weeklong dedicated dive into Morocco’s culinary history as told through cooking classes, farm tours, winery tours and, of course, eating. The welcoming cup of hot, sweet tea is the customary order of the hospitality business in Morocco.
We would be joining a group of eight who, like us, were all hungry for the adventure offered through the travel organization Tour with Absolutely. Our guide was four-time James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Cheryl Alters Jamison.
Our itinerary was carefully curated to include three cooking workshops, a visit to a family’s home for an argan oil-making demo, a walking tour of a souk (market in the medina) to see artisans in their workshops and guided walks through the bustling food market, where fragrant spices, fresh produce and local delicacies awakened our senses. There would also be a visit to a saffron farm and a sunset dining experience in the Agafay Desert (22 miles outside of Marrakech), while watching the silhouette of camels crossing the sand dunes in the distance.
To familiarize the food tour group with dishes that might be new to us, Jameson provided a booklet she had written, “Foods of Morocco, An Introduction.” Here’s a small primer from her pamphlet of some of the foods, which we kept our eyes peeled for as we embarked on our week of gastronomy.
Moroccan cuisine revolves around the traditional Berber diet. Berbers are the Indigenous people of North Africa, and one of its oldest cultures. Their diet features lamb, vegetables and dairy, all complemented by a delicate mix of spices like cumin, turmeric, paprika and cayenne, as well as aromatic herbs such as mint, coriander and parsley. Moroccan dishes also incorporate influences from Southern Europe and often include olives, olive oil and tomatoes, adding depth to the flavors. Following are a few of the typical Moroccan dishes we learned more about.
Tajine
Tajine (pronounced tah-JEEN and sometimes spelled tagine) is the omnipresent dish of Morocco and is essentially a slowly braised, stew-like meal. Everything about tajine — the way it is prepared, the aromas, even the pot it is cooked in — is exotic, heavenly and alluring.
“Tajines are the national dish of Morocco,” Jameson said at our opening dinner at the five-star La Maison Arabe restaurant where we savored several versions of the fragrant, mouth-watering stew steeped in cinnamon, ginger, saffron, olives and preserved lemons. “The name refers to both a traditional stew and the special conical clay pot that it is cooked in.”
Assorted sides dishes to serve with tajine including from top left: preserved lemons, harissa, ground turmeric, yogurt, couscous, ground chili pepper, dates, olives and mint sauce. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
The pot has a shallow bottom and a dome-shaped top that allows steam to rise to the top of the lid and then drop back down into the dish, flavoring it intensely.
Harissa
On the same first night dining extravaganza, Jameson noted that only a small bowl of harissa had been placed on the table. Jameson, who makes her home in Santa Fe, N.M., quickly motioned to our waiter to bring a few more servings of the brilliantly red-colored sauce to the table.
“Harissa is essential to add to Moroccan dishes, especially tajines,” she said. “I can’t get enough of it.”
Coming from the Land of Enchantment, known for its spicy Hatch green chiles and ripe red ones too, it wasn’t surprising to see her motives for the use of this red chile paste seasoning.
“I like it as a table condiment with flatbreads and, of course, tajines,” she said. “Traditionally, it’s used with restraint, at least compared to the spice of New Mexican food, in particular. However, Moroccans and visitors have become wildly enthusiastic about harissa more recently, and it appears on tables quite a bit now. And every cook has their own special recipe for the dish.”
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Couscous
Like tajines, couscous is synonymous with Moroccan cuisine.
Jameson said, “The name refers to the dish as well as the tiny grains of semolina durum wheat that are traditionally double- or triple- steamed.”
Couscous is a grain dish and should not be confused with rice, which is a cereal grain. Couscous can be made of barley, millet or other grains.
Forget instant couscous, which is what we are most familiar with in the U.S.
“It’s very handy,” Jameson said of instant couscous, “but never has the lightness of texture of the ‘real’ dish.”
“Couscous,” as one of our cooking instructors during the week said, “is so good we say it twice.”
Preserved lemons
“Preserved lemons are one of the distinctive tastes of the country’s foods,” Jameson said. “They have become easier to find in American supermarkets and always in Middle Eastern markets but are simple to make if you plan by at least a few days.”
Chicken tajine with preserved lemons, chickpeas and olives.
Making a batch of preserved lemons was one of the first recipes we prepared upon arriving home. They couldn’t be easier to put up and pay off handsomely flavor wise in all sorts of dishes. For instance, we wouldn’t think of steaming artichokes without a few slices of preserved lemons tucked in between the leaves.
In simple terms, fresh lemons are halved and packed in a brine of salt and lemon juice to ferment at room temperature for about a week. It’s similar to making pickles.
“While the lemon pulp can be used, it is usually the peel that is sliced, chopped or minced and added to flavor many meat, fish or vegetable dishes,” Jameson said.
Argan oil
On a day trip to Essaouira, a seaside town, we visited two sisters in their home to watch how Moroccan argan oil is made. There are two versions of the oil, the popular cosmetic and the culinary version. The oil is extracted from the kernels from nuts of a small gnarly tree that is native to Morocco.
As we made our way, Jameson pointed out the famous goats that climb into those same trees to eat the branches.
The process of extracting the oil is a laborious task, usually accomplished by women. The edible ground seeds are roasted before grinding to develop an unctuous flavor. The seeds used for cosmetics are not roasted.
“The edible version of the oil tastes somewhat like roasted hazelnuts,” Jameson said. “One of the culinary uses of argan oil is amlou, a burnished brown sweetened dip that includes ground almonds and honey.”
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Saffron
Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world because of the labor and tedious timing necessary to extract the flavorful reddish-orange “stigmas” from the middle of the plant a few weeks after the flower blooms. The stigmas must be harvested in the midmorning, when the flower is fully open to the sun.
We gained more appreciation about this prized spice at Le Paradis du Safran, where we met owner Christine Ferrari. She plants 6 tons of saffron bulbs, which requires 20 women who tediously separate the saffron filament from the crocus sativus flowers during the harvesting period over a three- to four-week period. The filaments are dried in a dehydrator. It takes about three and a half hours to harvest one gram of saffron.
Because of the expense of getting genuine saffron, it is often adulterated and sold under false pretense. To tell if you have the real deal, place a couple of threads of saffron in a bit of cold water. The filament should float on the top, and it takes about 30 minutes until the water becomes yellow. The water must remain transparent. A false saffron thread will immediately sink to the bottom, and the color of the water will be yellow, orange, red or pink and the water will be cloudy.
Mint tea
“We will never be far from tea,” Jameson said. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner or in between. Tea here means sweetened green tea infused with fresh spearmint or other mint. And it is served with ritual flourish, from high above the waiter’s head, which aerated it, as it is poured into small glasses.”
On our last day of our remarkable food tour of Marrakesh, we gathered around the dining table in the lobby of our elegant hotel, sipping delicious, sweet hot tea lavishly poured by our movie-star handsome wait staff.
We recounted our fondest foodie takeaways from our truly memorable week of camaraderie with newfound like-minded friends, dining and imbibing. It was decided we needed to have a reunion trip to Santa Fe or schedule another trip with Jameson for our next food adventure.
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