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827 recipes

Boulfaf

On the first day of Eid al-Adha, while the rest of the sheep hangs to rest, Moroccan families light the brazier on the roof or in the courtyard and make boulfaf from the fresh liver. The liver is seared whole, cut into cubes, rolled in cumin, paprika and salt, wrapped in lacy caul fat and grilled until the fat crisps and melts into it. Each bite is rich, smoky and soft, and the skewers go round with mint tea. Liver from your butcher works just as well on any day, and caul fat can be ordered. Chef's tip: wrap each cube snugly, not in a loose sheet; tight wrapping melts into a thin crisp shell instead of flaring up.

40 min

Moroccan Meat

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Khlii

Once made in late summer from the Eid al-Adha meat, khlii was marinated, hung on rooftop lines in the Fez medina sun, then simmered in beef fat and olive oil and packed into earthenware jars for the year. It is deeply savoury and chewy, scented with coriander seed, cumin and garlic, and the fat it sits in is as prized as the meat, for frying eggs, enriching lentils or folding into couscous. This home version swaps the rooftop for the fridge and a low oven: the meat marinates for 24 hours in the fridge, dries for about 6 hours at a temperature that takes it well above 71 °C, then confits for about 90 minutes and goes back into the fridge, where it keeps for up to a month under its fat. Because it is a home-preserved meat, it is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Chef's tip: slice the beef with the grain into long strips no thicker than your little finger; thicker strips stay wet inside and spoil.

520 min

Moroccan Meat

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Seafood pastilla

The sweet pigeon pastilla belongs to Fez; along the northern coast, from Tetouan to Tangier and down to the Atlantic towns, the savoury seafood version is what turns up at weddings and Ramadan dinners. Thin warqa pastry wraps a filling of prawns, white fish and squid, rice vermicelli and plenty of chermoula, the lemony herb, garlic, cumin and paprika marinade, and the pie is baked until it shatters at the touch. Inside it is juicy, tangy and a little spicy. Serve it hot, cut into wedges, with a green salad. Filo works if you cannot find warqa or brick pastry. Chef's tip: drain the cooked filling in a sieve for 10 minutes before you fill the pie; wet filling is what makes a soggy base.

120 min

Moroccan Fish

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Chraime

Friday night in Moroccan and Libyan Jewish homes, from Casablanca to Tripoli and now Paris and Tel Aviv, often begins with a plate of chraime before the main course. Thick fish steaks simmer in a brick-red sauce built from a frightening amount of garlic, sweet and hot paprika, chilli, caraway and cumin, loosened with oil and a squeeze of lemon. It is spicy, garlicky and very savoury, and the oily sauce begs to be mopped up with challah or other good bread. It is also eaten cold the next day. Chef's tip: cook the spices in the oil over a low heat until they smell toasty but not dark; burnt paprika tastes acrid and you cannot rescue it.

40 min

Moroccan Fish

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Mechoui

Under the arcades by the Marrakech spice square, mechoui sellers lift whole lambs out of clay pits sunk in the ground, where they have roasted since dawn, and sell it by weight with a twist of paper holding cumin and salt. A home oven cannot quite reproduce the pit, but a bone-in shoulder rubbed with garlic, paprika and cumin and roasted low and slow gets you close: crackling-crisp outside, tender enough to pull apart with fingers inside. It is festival and wedding food, and also a Sunday treat, eaten with bread and nothing more than the salt-cumin dip. Many cooks baste with butter; olive oil keeps this version dairy free. Chef's tip: leave the lamb uncovered for the last 30 minutes at a higher heat; that short blast is what gives the bark-like crust.

290 min

Moroccan Meat

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Qodban

Smoke rising off long braziers marks the qodban sellers of Marrakech, who thread lamb cubes with little pieces of fat so the meat bastes itself over the coals. Cumin, paprika, grated onion and parsley go on before grilling; more cumin and salt go on after. The result is charred and juicy, fragrant rather than fiery, and eaten straight off the skewer, wrapped in khobz with a little harissa and tomato. Leg or shoulder of lamb both work. Chef's tip: alternate every two pieces of lean meat with one small piece of fat; it melts as the skewer turns and keeps the lean pieces moist.

28 min

Moroccan Meat

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Sardines stuffed with chermoula

Walk past the fish stalls by Essaouira's harbour and you smell this before you see it: sardines opened flat, smeared with a green-red paste of herbs, garlic, cumin and paprika, pressed together in pairs, dusted with flour and fried until the edges crunch. The fish stays moist and rich inside, sharpened by lemon and a little chilli. In Safi and Agadir homes they appear at lunch with a tomato and onion salad and bread, or tucked into sandwiches from street carts. Chef's tip: ask the fishmonger to butterfly the sardines and remove the backbone; it saves a fiddly 20 minutes and they lie flat.

45 min

Moroccan Fish

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Dafina

Dafina, meaning buried or covered, is what Moroccan Jewish families from Casablanca to Meknes set to cook before sundown on Friday, so a hot lunch is waiting after synagogue on Saturday without lighting a fire on the Sabbath. Beef, a marrow bone, chickpeas, potatoes, sweet potatoes and dates go into one big pot with whole eggs in their shells and a cloth bag of wheat berries, all seasoned with paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and a little honey. Overnight the eggs turn creamy and brown, the wheat becomes sticky, and the broth is sweet-savoury and deep. There is no pork in it, and kosher cooks use kosher beef. Chef's tip: wrap the wheat berries loosely in a cloth bag or a roasting bag with holes; packed too tight, the grain cannot swell and stays hard.

760 min

Moroccan Meat

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Mrouzia

Families make a big pot of mrouzia in the days after Eid al-Adha, partly as a treat and partly as a way to keep meat: cooked down with honey, smen and spices until almost confit-like, it keeps for days, and in the past for weeks. The lamb is very tender and dark, coated in a thick, sweet-spiced sauce heavy with ras el hanout, cinnamon and saffron, with plump raisins and fried almonds on top. Serve small portions with bread and a sharp salad to balance the richness. The usual mistake is adding the honey too early, so it catches and turns bitter before the lamb is tender. Chef's tip: add the honey only once the meat is tender; added early, it scorches on the base during the long cook.

150 min

Moroccan Meat

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Hergma

Sticky with gelatine and warmed by cumin and ginger, hergma is the winter comfort food of Rabat's working kitchens and the dish families make from the trotters after Eid al-Adha. The feet cook for hours with chickpeas, whole wheat berries, garlic and a warm mix of paprika, cumin and ginger, until the gelatine melts into a sauce so sticky it glues your fingers together. Some cooks add raisins for a sweet edge. Eat it hot with bread, picking the tender meat and soft cartilage from the bones. A butcher who sells halal or Mediterranean cuts will clean, singe and split the trotters for you; ask for that. Chef's tip: blanch the trotters and throw away the first water; it carries off the scum and gives a clean-tasting sauce.

260 min

Moroccan Meat

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Tanjia marrakchia

Marrakech men's dish par excellence, tanjia is packed into a tall clay urn on a Friday morning, sealed with paper and string, and carried to the furnace man of the local hammam, who buries it in the warm ashes all day. Nothing is browned and almost no water goes in: the beef shin collapses in its own juices with preserved lemon, a whole head of garlic, cumin, saffron and smen into soft, sticky strands with a sharp, salty, lemony sauce. It comes to the table in the evening with bread and nothing else. At home, a lidded casserole in a low oven gives the same result. Chef's tip: wrap the lid of the pot in foil before closing it; a tight seal keeps in the steam that braises the meat without adding water.

375 min

Moroccan Meat

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Cabrito assado à minhota

Easter Sunday in the Minho means cabrito: young goat rubbed with garlic, paprika and lard, soaked overnight in white wine and roasted until the meat falls from the bone. Families in Arcos de Valdevez and Monção serve it with roast potatoes and a tray of rice baked in the meat juices. This contains pork (lard and smoked bacon) and uses wine; an alcohol-free option is in the ingredient note. Chef's tip: baste every 20 minutes, as kid is lean and dries out quickly without it.

180 min

Portuguese Meat

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Patlıcan kebabı

Late summer in southeastern Turkey, from Urfa to Gaziantep, means patlıcan kebabı: thick rounds of unpeeled aubergine threaded between small patties of spiced lamb, so the fat from the meat bastes the aubergine as it chars. Served on lavaş, the aubergine is pressed with a spoon into the bread and the whole thing is eaten with onions and green chillies. Use small, firm aubergines that won't split on the skewer. Common mistake: cutting the aubergine thinner than the meat; it burns before the köfte is cooked. Chef's tip: peel the charred aubergine skin off on the plate, but leave it on while grilling.

50 min

Turkish Meat

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Merluza a la sidra

Asturias has two great loves at table, the fish landed at ports like Cudillero and Avilés and the cider pressed from its orchards, and merluza a la sidra brings them together. Families cook it for Sunday lunch, the hake settled on a bed of soft onion and potato with cider poured over, until the sauce turns sweet-sharp. The cider is alcoholic; cloudy apple juice with a little cider vinegar makes a good alcohol-free swap. Chef's tip: add the hake only when the potatoes are nearly tender, so the fish stays juicy.

60 min

Spanish Fish

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Rabo de toro

Córdoba claims rabo de toro as its own, and its taverns near the Mezquita serve it all year, though it is most at home on a cold winter Sunday. Once it was made with the tails of bulls from the ring; now it is beef or veal oxtail, browned and braised for hours in red wine with vegetables until the meat slips off the bone into a glossy, sticky sauce. This recipe uses wine; the alcohol-free option is in the ingredient list. Chef's tip: make it a day ahead, chill it and lift off the set fat; the sauce is cleaner and the flavour deeper.

240 min

Spanish Meat

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Trucha a la manteca

Restaurants on the shores of Nahuel Huapi, in Bariloche and Villa La Angostura, put rainbow trout from the cold Andean lakes on almost every menu, and this butter version is the one locals order most. Fillets are fried with crisp skin, then drenched in butter browned with flaked almonds and sharpened with lemon. Serve with boiled new potatoes and a green salad. Any trout or char works. People commonly start the fish in butter, which burns before the skin crisps; fry it in a film of oil and make the brown butter after. Chef's tip: dry the skin really well and dust it with rice flour; it gives a thin, glassy crust without any gluten.

25 min

Argentinian Fish

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Salted butter caramel

Salted butter caramel was made famous by a confectioner in Quiberon in the 1970s, and now every crêperie from Rennes to Brest pours it over sweet crêpes, and every Breton cupboard has a jar for ice cream, apples or simply a spoon. Brittany kept the habit of salted butter long after the rest of France, so the salt is part of the flavour, not a trend. The caramel is cooked dark, loosened with hot cream and finished with butter flecked with sea salt. It keeps for two weeks in the fridge. Chef's tip: warm the cream before adding it; cold cream makes the caramel seize into hard lumps and spit furiously.

20 min

French Basics

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Rhode Island clam cakes

At beach shacks along Narragansett Bay and in Galilee, clam cakes are bought by the paper bag, half a dozen at a time, to dunk in a cup of clear clam chowder. They are not patties but craggy, golden fritters, crisp outside and soft inside, studded with chopped quahog clams. Chef's tip: use the clam juice as part of the liquid; it puts the sea flavour into every bite of batter.

40 min

American Fish

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Tatws pum munud

Tatws pum munud means 'five-minute potatoes' in Welsh, a joke, since it takes half an hour, but it was the quick, cheap one-pot supper of North Wales quarry and farm families. Sliced potatoes and onions are simmered on a bed of smoked bacon (pork) in stock until the potatoes are soft and the bottom layer catches and turns golden. Chef's tip: don't stir; shake the pan instead so the layers stay intact and the bottom crisps.

50 min

British Meat

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Country ham with red-eye gravy

Salt-cured, aged country ham is a pride of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia smokehouses, and on mountain breakfast tables it is pan-fried in thin slices, then the pan is deglazed with black coffee to make red-eye gravy, thin, salty and bitter-sweet, spooned over the ham, grits or biscuits. This is pork, and very salty, so the slices are soaked first. Chef's tip: soak the ham in water or milk for 30 minutes if your country ham is very salty, then pat dry.

20 min

American Meat

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Southern fried catfish

Fried catfish is the Friday night fish-fry and Delta church supper of Mississippi and Arkansas, where much of America's catfish is farmed. Fillets are soaked in seasoned milk or buttermilk, rolled in cornmeal and fried until the crust crackles and the mild, sweet fish inside flakes apart. Serve with hushpuppies, slaw and lemon. Chef's tip: cut thick fillets in half lengthways so they cook in the same time as the crust browns.

30 min

American Fish

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Pote asturiano

Before fabada became famous, pote was what simmered on every Asturian hearth: white beans, dark winter cabbage, potatoes and the cured pork mix the locals call compango. It is still the dish for a cold, wet weekday in the mining valleys around Mieres and Langreo, served from the pot with crusty bread. This contains pork (chorizo, morcilla, pork belly and ham hock). Chef's tip: add the morcilla only for the last 20 minutes and never stir hard after that, or it breaks up and clouds the broth.

185 min

Spanish Meat

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Fegato alla veneziana

Fegato alla veneziana is one of the oldest dishes in Venice and still a weekday staple in the trattorie around the Rialto market. Mountains of onions are cooked gently until soft and sweet, then thin strips of calf's liver are tossed through them for barely two minutes, so the liver stays tender against the jammy onions, with a splash of vinegar and parsley to finish. The classic partner is soft white or yellow polenta, which soaks up the buttery juices. Chef's tip: slice the liver into thin strips, no thicker than your little finger, so it cooks through in moments without going tough.

60 min

Italian Meat

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Black Country faggots

Faggots are the thrifty meatballs of the Black Country, the industrial towns west of Birmingham, sold by butchers and served at chip shops with mushy peas and gravy. They are made from pork liver, pork belly and onion with breadcrumbs, sage and mace, and baked in a deep onion gravy. This is a pork dish. Chef's tip: wrap each faggot in caul fat if your butcher has it; it bastes them and holds them together.

75 min

British Meat

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