Cooking Moroccan-style

Moroccan food is one of the most sensual, appealing unashamedly to the senses in a way that no other cuisine can match. It's world-renowned for its delicious combinations of spices in tagines (casseroles or stews), the delicate b'stilla pastry that wraps a mixture of chicken or pigeon with nuts and dusted with sugar and cinnamon, its perfect patisserie served with mint tea ... it's all mouth-wateringly good.

A Moroccan meal starts either with harira, the traditional soup with vegetables, tomatoes, chickpeas and lamb, or with a huge array of cooked salads. These are usually vegetarian and can include carrots with cinnamon, aubergine puree, marinated courgettes. red and green peppers and various types of olives. They're served with flat rounds of bread that are used to dip and scoop.

A tagine might well be the main course. The conical-lidded pot of the same name is found everywhere - lift the lid and savour the tantalising waft of spices. Traditional dishes are chicken with preserved lemon and olives, lamb with prunes and almonds or kefta (meatballs) in a tomato sauce with eggs. Or of course it could be couscous, traditionally eaten for Friday lunch but always available in restaurants. Meat and vegetables are served over the couscous, along with the sauce they were cooked in. Fish is excellent too, either cooked in a tagine or smothered in chermoula herbs and spices and grilled over coals.

Interest in Moroccan cuisine is growing world-wide and there are Moroccan restaurants in every major city. Visitors to Fez can spend a day learning the finer points of Moroccan cookery with Lahcen Beqqi who runs courses at a local guesthouse. Lahcen takes his clients to the souk first, to buy the ingredients for the meal. And this is not a trip to the supermarket - the market has tiny stalls where vegetables are piled high, plump and colourful, and most of all, seasonal. Then it's back to the guesthouse kitchen for a day of preparation and cooking and then eating and enjoying. See Lahcen's recipe below.

Lahcen with the BBC's Rick Stein

Canadian connection
Well-known Canadian chef and food writer, Deb Rankine, was so enthralled with the cuisine on a recent trip to Fez, that she's putting together a foodie tour in November this year called the Culinary Caravan.
Chef Deb (above) says, 'My focus at Culinary Caravan is to envelop my clients and students with the scents and flavours of other cultures. I comb both the world and my own backyard for authentic ingredients to integrate into my dishes.'

Participants on this tour will stay at the magnificent Riad Ibn Battouta and have three full days of practical cooking instructions (and eating!), as well as shopping for ingredients - and no doubt souvenirs such as ceramics, jewellery and carpets - relaxing on the rooftop terrace at the riad, exploring the medina, enjoying the hammam and plenty of sampling the wares of local restaurants.

For those who can't make it to Fez, there's always the popular blog, Moroccan Kitchen. Put together by Sabah and Samira of Riad Laaroussa, it gives a taster of what you can expect from Fassi cuisine with the recipes served at this magnificent guesthouse.

Sabah and Samira work on the blog

Lahcen's recipe for Lamb, Prune and Date Tagine

For 3 people:

* ½ kilo of a shoulder of lamb
* 250 grams of dried prunes (around 30 prunes)
* 6 dates (pitted)
* one big red onion, sliced
* 200 grams of roasted almonds
* one cinnamon stick
* one pinch of ginger
* one pinch of saffron
* one pinch of salt (or to taste)
* one pinch of pepper (or to taste)

Wash the prunes and soak them in one litre of water. Put ginger, saffron, and lamb in a big pot. Cook on medium flame. Mix for one minute. Add olive oil and onion. Leave for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper. Drain the prunes but keep the water! Pour it into the pot with the lamb. Let the meat cook for 1 ½ hours (or however long it takes to cook) on a medium flame. *You can also leave it on a low flame and let it cook longer. 15 minutes before serving, add the prunes and dates.

top photo: Suzanna Clarke

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news