All recipes

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TihaneStuffed lamb spleen

Tihane, or tehal, is an old Eid al-Adha speciality from Moroccan towns such as Fez and Marrakech, made on the days after the sacrifice when the offal is shared out. The lamb's spleen is cut open into a pocket and stuffed with chopped liver and heart, a little fat, green olives, preserved lemon, garlic and cumin, then sewn shut, poached and roasted until browned. It is sliced thin and eaten warm or cold with bread. Ask a halal butcher for the spleen and offal. Chef's tip: prick the spleen with a fine needle before poaching so it doesn't burst in the pot.

130 min

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Moroccan bachkoutouOrange and sesame dunking biscuits

Moroccan grandmothers bake bachkoutou by the trayful and keep them in big tins for the afternoon glass of sweet mint tea, and neighbourhood ovens in Fes and Casablanca bake them for families who bring their dough. These are dry, crunchy little biscuits, not rich at all, made with eggs, sugar and oil rather than butter, with orange zest and a coating of toasted sesame; they are meant to be dunked until they soften slightly. Shapes vary from town to town: fingers, rings and rope twists are all common, and some cooks add aniseed. Too much flour is the easy mistake: the dough should stay soft and slightly sticky, or the biscuits bake heavy and hard rather than crisp and light. Chef's tip: once they are cold, put them back in a warm, switched-off oven for 20 minutes; that extra drying is what makes them keep their snap for weeks.

38 min

Moroccan Baking

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Tagine qoq w jelbana (lamb with artichokes and peas)

In Fes and Meknes, spring is announced by the first wild artichokes and fresh peas, and families cook them in this pale, saffron-gold lamb tagine for the Friday lunch. The lamb simmers with onion, ginger, saffron and olive oil until tender, then artichoke hearts and peas go in so they stay green, and preserved lemon adds a salty brightness. Eat it straight from the pot with khobz. The common mistake is adding the vegetables with the meat, so they go grey and mushy; they need only the last 20 minutes. Chef's tip: rub cut artichokes with lemon and keep them in lemon water, or they blacken within minutes.

130 min

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Gueddid (spiced dried lamb, safe oven method)

After Eid al-Adha, families across Morocco traditionally cut part of the sacrificed lamb into strips, rub it with salt, garlic, cumin and coriander and hang it on rooftop lines in the sun for days; the gueddid is then kept for Ashura couscous, lentil stews and eggs. Sun-drying meat at home is not safe without strict control, so this version cures the strips in the fridge, then dries them in a low oven until the meat is cooked through to at least 71 °C and leathery-dry, with the same deep, salty, cumin flavour. The common mistake is cutting thick strips: anything over 1 cm stays moist in the centre. Chef's tip: semi-freeze the meat for an hour first so you can slice it thinly and evenly. Not for anyone on a low-salt diet.

1740 min

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Moroccan fish couscous (seksu bel hout)

Along the Atlantic coast in Safi and Essaouira, the Friday couscous is often made with the morning's catch rather than lamb. Firm white fish steaks are marinated in chermoula, then gently poached on top of a tomato and vegetable broth while the couscous steams above it, so everything takes on the scent of cumin, paprika and coriander. Serve the fish and vegetables over the grain with plenty of broth. The usual mistake is adding the fish at the start; it falls apart and goes dry. It needs only the last 10–12 minutes. Chef's tip: lay a few lemon slices under the fish in the pot; they keep it from sticking and lift the broth.

90 min

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Tagine bil khorchefLamb tagine with cardoons

In late winter and spring, when wild cardoons (khorchef) appear in the markets of Fez, Meknes and Rabat, Moroccan families cook them into this lamb tagine for a family lunch, eaten with bread to mop up the sauce. Lamb shoulder is simmered slowly with onion, ginger, saffron and turmeric until tender, then the peeled cardoon stalks are added and finished with preserved lemon and green olives, giving a tangy, faintly bitter, artichoke-like sauce. The usual mistake is not peeling and soaking the cardoons properly: the stringy outside must come off and the stalks must sit in lemon water, or they go brown and taste harsh. Artichoke hearts are a good stand-in. Chef's tip: reduce the sauce uncovered at the end until it is thick and oily, the sign of a well-made tagine.

155 min

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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

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KhliiSpiced dried preserved beef

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

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MechouiSlow-roast lamb shoulder

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

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MrouziaLamb with honey and raisins

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

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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

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BoulfafGrilled lamb liver skewers

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

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DafinaSlow-cooked Shabbat beef and chickpea stew

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

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ChraimeFish in spicy garlic paprika sauce

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

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HergmaLamb trotters with chickpeas

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

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QodbanGrilled lamb skewers

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

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Tanjia marrakchiaSlow-cooked beef with preserved lemon

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

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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 min

Moroccan Drinks

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Preserved lemons (l'hamd marked)

No Moroccan pantry is complete without a jar of l'hamd marked, lemons packed in salt and their own juice and left for about a month until the rind softens and takes on a mellow, floral, almost sweet flavour. The rind is what you use: finely chopped into salads, slivered over chicken with olives, added to fish tagines, chermoula and bean dishes. Fez cooks traditionally use small, thin-skinned doqq or beldi lemons, but any unwaxed lemon works. Hands-on work is only 20 minutes; the jar then needs 3–4 weeks in a cool, dark cupboard before it is ready. Chef's tip: press the lemons down hard every day for the first week; as they release juice they shrink, and you can squeeze one more lemon into the jar.

20 min

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Ras el hanout

Ras el hanout means 'head of the shop', and every spice seller in the Marrakech souk will tell you theirs is the best: a warm, complex mix of a dozen or more spices that they grind to their own formula. This home version balances earthy cumin and coriander with sweet cinnamon, ginger and turmeric, the perfume of cardamom and dried rosebuds, and the heat of black pepper. Rub it on vegetables before roasting, stir a teaspoon into tagines, lentils or couscous broth, or season chickpeas and roast pumpkin with it. Toasting the whole spices first takes 5 minutes and makes a real difference. Chef's tip: make small batches and store the blend in a sealed jar away from light; it is at its best for about 3 months.

15 min

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Smen (salted, herbed butter)

Atlas households once kept jars of smen for months, even years, until the salted butter developed a pungent, almost blue-cheese aroma; a spoonful stirred into couscous, harira or a chicken tagine gives a depth nothing else can. Long ageing at room temperature is risky at home, so this is a safer fridge version: pasteurised unsalted butter is simmered with dried za'atar or oregano, strained, salted and then matured in the fridge for 2–4 weeks, which gives a mellow, nutty, faintly tangy smen rather than the fiercely strong old kind. For the real long-aged flavour, buy smen from a reputable shop. Use it a teaspoon at a time; it is meant as a seasoning, not a cooking fat. The mistake to avoid is leaving any milk solids or water in the butter, as that is what turns it rancid or mouldy rather than pleasantly aged. Chef's tip: strain it through muslin until perfectly clear; any milky bits left in the jar are what turn butter rancid.

30 min