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12 recipes

Lemon verbena tea (louiza)

After a big dinner or before bed, many Moroccan households swap green mint tea for a pot of louiza, lemon verbena, whose long, narrow leaves give a pale golden infusion that smells of lemon sherbet and has no caffeine. The fresh herb is sold in bunches alongside mint and absinthe at market herb stalls, and dried leaves keep all year. Drink it plain, lightly sweetened, or brewed with a few mint sprigs. It is soothing, clean-tasting and fragrant. Chef's tip: pour boiling water over the leaves and let them steep off the heat for 5 minutes; boiling the leaves in the pot, a common mistake, turns the tea grassy and bitter.

10 minMoroccanDrinksVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Panaché (Moroccan mixed fruit milkshake)

Juice bars from Tangier to Agadir list a 'panaché' on the board, which in Morocco means a thick milkshake blended from whatever mix of fruit is in season, most often banana, apple, avocado and orange, served in a tall glass and sometimes topped with chopped dried fruit and nuts. Avocado is used as a sweet fruit here, and it makes the drink extra creamy. It is a favourite after school, as a quick breakfast or after an afternoon in the medina. Make it just before drinking: the orange juice can make the milk turn slightly grainy and the avocado darkens if it stands, which is the usual mistake. Chef's tip: use a ripe, soft avocado and a banana with brown freckles for natural sweetness, so you need very little sugar.

10 minMoroccanDrinksGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Krachel (aniseed and sesame brioche buns)

Moroccan bakeries pile their windows with krachel, round, glossy buns of enriched dough perfumed with aniseed, toasted sesame and orange-flower water, and families bake them at home for breakfast, for guests and for feast days. They are soft and pillowy, lightly sweet, with a distinctive liquorice-like scent from the anise and a nutty crunch of sesame on top. Eat them warm with butter and jam, dipped into milky coffee, or with mint tea in the afternoon. The dough needs two rises, about 1 1/2 hours in all. Don't rush the rise: under-proved krachel bake dense and tight instead of soft and fluffy. Chef's tip: lightly toast the aniseed and sesame in a dry pan before adding them to the dough; it doubles their fragrance.

138 minMoroccanBaking
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Moroccan almond milk (sharbat louz)

At Moroccan weddings and engagement parties, silver trays of tall glasses filled with sharbat louz are passed among the guests: chilled milk blended smooth with blanched almonds, sugar and a perfume of orange-flower water. It is also a favourite summer drink at home and is often offered to break the fast in Ramadan. The taste is creamy, delicate and nutty, a world away from carton almond milk, since it is real dairy milk enriched with almonds. Serve it very cold, on its own or with sweets. A common mistake is skipping the straining, which leaves a gritty drink instead of a smooth, silky one. Chef's tip: blend the almonds with the sugar and a little milk first, into a fine paste, before adding the rest; that way it ends up silky rather than gritty. Not for anyone with a nut allergy.

15 minMoroccanDrinksGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Nous-nous (half-half coffee)

Sit down at a café terrace in Casablanca, Rabat or Marrakech and order a 'nous-nous' (from 'nus', half) and you will get a small glass of half espresso, half steamed milk, often layered so the coffee floats in a dark band over the pale milk with a cap of foam. It is the default morning and afternoon coffee for many Moroccans, sipped slowly while watching the street, usually with a sugar lump or two on the saucer. It is smaller and stronger than a latte and milkier than a macchiato. A moka pot works fine at home if you have no espresso machine. Chef's tip: heat the milk only to 60–65 °C, hot to the touch but not scalding; boiled milk loses its sweetness and the foam collapses, a common mistake.

5 minMoroccanDrinksGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Moroccan spiced coffee

In many Moroccan homes, coffee is bought ready-mixed from the roaster with a spoonful of 'attria', a warm blend of ground spices such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, black pepper and toasted sesame, that gives it a rounded, gently peppery aroma. It is brewed in a pan or a pot and sipped black and sweet, or with a splash of milk, after lunch, with pastries for guests, or on cold mornings. The spices soften the bitterness and make the whole kitchen smell wonderful. This home version mixes the spices into ordinary ground coffee. Chef's tip: keep the coffee at a bare simmer and never let it boil hard; vigorous boiling, the usual mistake, extracts bitterness from both coffee and spices.

10 minMoroccanDrinksVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Fekkas (twice-baked almond biscuits)

Before Eid and during Ramadan, Moroccan kitchens fill with the scent of fekkas: logs of a soft, eggy dough studded with almonds, raisins, aniseed and sesame are baked, cooled, sliced thin and baked again until dry, golden and very crunchy. They are offered to guests on trays with ghriba and other biscuits and dunked into mint tea or milky coffee, and they keep for weeks in a tin, so they are perfect to make ahead. The flavour is gently sweet, with liquorice notes from the anise and a little lemon. Avoid slicing the logs while they are still hot from the first bake; they crumble. Let them firm up first. Chef's tip: let the baked logs cool completely, ideally overnight, before slicing; warm logs crumble under the knife.

75 minMoroccanBaking
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Sfenj (Moroccan doughnut rings)

Early in the morning, in medina lanes from Fez to Casablanca, the sfenji pulls handfuls of sticky dough from a bowl, pokes a hole through each with his thumb and drops the rings into a big pan of oil, where they puff into crisp, golden, irregular doughnuts with a chewy, airy inside. Customers carry them away threaded on a strip of palm leaf, to eat hot with mint tea or coffee, plain, dusted with sugar or dipped in honey. The dough is just flour, yeast, salt and water, and deliberately very wet; that is what gives the open, holey crumb. Allow about 1 1/2 hours for it to rise. Where sfenj go wrong is a dough that is too stiff; it should be sticky and slack, or the rings come out bready instead of open and chewy. Chef's tip: keep a bowl of water beside you and wet your hands before every piece, so the sticky dough slides off your fingers instead of clinging to them.

130 minMoroccanBakingVegan
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Meskouta (Moroccan orange cake)

Every Moroccan home cook seems to have a meskouta recipe, the light, fluffy sponge that is baked in a ring tin and set out for afternoon tea, unexpected guests or a children's snack. This one is flavoured with fresh orange juice and zest; many families make a yogurt version instead, using the yogurt pot to measure everything, and that variation is in the steps. The crumb is airy and moist, not too sweet, and it pairs perfectly with mint tea or a glass of milk. No mixer is strictly needed, but it helps. Chef's tip: beat the eggs and sugar for a full 5 minutes until pale and tripled in volume; under-whipped eggs, the usual mistake, make a dense, flat meskouta.

55 minMoroccanBaking
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Almond ghriba

Ghriba are the crinkle-topped cookies that fill Moroccan biscuit trays for Eid, weddings and guests dropping by for tea; the almond version, ghriba bel louz, is especially loved in Fez and Tétouan. The dough is just ground almonds, sugar, egg and lemon zest, rolled in icing sugar so the top cracks into white rivers as it bakes. They are naturally gluten free, crisp at the edge and soft and chewy inside. Chef's tip: take them out when the cracks have formed but the centres still feel soft; they firm up as they cool, and overbaked ghriba turn hard.

35 minMoroccanBakingGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Moroccan mint tea (atay)

Atay is Morocco's gesture of welcome, poured for guests in homes from Tangier to the Sahara, in shops while you bargain and after every meal. Chinese gunpowder green tea is rinsed, brewed with a big bunch of fresh spearmint and sweetened in the pot, then poured from high above the glasses so it froths. The host often pours a glass and returns it to the pot several times to mix the sugar through. The result is sweet, fresh and pleasantly bitter. Chef's tip: rinse the tea leaves with a splash of boiling water and throw that water away first; it removes the dust and the harshest bitterness.

10 minMoroccanDrinksVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Chajá

Chajá was created in 1927 at a bakery in Paysandú, a city on the Uruguay River, and named after a local bird whose feathers look as fluffy as its crumbly meringue coat. Today it's Uruguay's birthday and celebration cake: layers of light sponge soaked in peach syrup, filled with whipped cream, peaches and dulce de leche, then covered in crushed meringue. It's sweet, soft and crunchy at once, best on the day it's assembled. Chef's tip: soak the sponge but not too much; it should feel moist, not wet, or the layers slide.

90 minParaguayanBaking
by KrazyBadal 0 views