North African

Another Moroccan soup, this one too makes a good meal to serve at a party.

For this spicy and aromatic Tunisian soup, use any firm white fish, like cod or haddock, and serve it as a main course.

This very popular Tunisian soup is eaten for breakfast. In poor families it serves as a meal during the day. Little cafés in popular areas serve it in the morning to people going off to work.

This delicate and beautiful soup is made with the large orange pumpkins that are sold cut up in large slices. Ask to taste a bit from an open one, as the taste varies. You will know if it is not very good.

These Tunisian fried parcels in a crisp casing of ouarka (see page 125) are ubiquitous appetizers in North African restaurants. You can use fillo to make them, although it is not quite the same. They should be served immediately, as soon as they come out of the frying oil.

This rich Tunisian pie makes an interesting main dish.

These individual Moroccan pies are made with the paper-thin pancake-type pastry called ouarka (page 125), but fillo can be used. They are deliciously spicy and herby, with masses of parsley and cilantro. Serve them as a first or as a main course.

Variously pronounced bstilla, pastilla, and bisteeya, it is one of the great dishes of Morocco, described as “food for the gods.” Vast quantities are made in huge trays for weddings and grand occasions. The version with pigeons is the most prestigious. Moroccans say the dish was brought back by the Moors from Andalusia after the Reconquista, but in Andalusia, at El Molino, the center of gastronomic research outside Granada, where they serve it as a historic dish, they say it was brought to Spain from Morocco. In a thirteenth-century Andalusian culinary manuscript in Arabic (see Lucie Bolens, appendix) there is a recipe for a pigeon omelet which is almost identical to the filling for bstilla. The preparation of the pastry called ouarka requires much skill and experience (see page 125). You can buy it vacuum-packed in French supermarkets, so perhaps we will be able to find it in America soon. Store-bought sheets of fillo make an excellent alternative. There are two famous versions. The one of Fez is the most surprising, with its sweet-and-savory combination, but you must also try the sharp lemony one of Tétouan, which is given as a variation. The cooked birds are not deboned in Morocco—the bones are left in the pie—but it is much more pleasant to eat the pie without them.

This simple and delightful North African salad is easy to make with the frozen artichoke bottoms obtainable from Middle Eastern stores.

Another Moroccan orange salad. Argan is the preferred oil for it in Morocco, but you could also try hazelnut, walnut, or sesame oil.

I love this Moroccan salad. The eggplants are boiled, not fried, so it is not oily. It is best made several hours in advance so that the flavors have time to penetrate.

The delicate nutty argan oil is particularly good in this spicy Moroccan salad. It is made from the nut in the fruit of the argan tree, which grows exclusively in southwestern Morocco.

In this method, which is considered the most prestigious and gives the best results, no water is used. The lemon juice, which is the pickling liquor, can be reused for further batches.

In Morocco, this is the most popular sweetmeat. The almond stuffing is colored green to give the semblance of pistachios, which are considered more prestigious. Use slightly moist dates such as the Tunisian Deglet Nour or Californian varieties.

These are good to serve with coffee or tea.

The most famous of Moroccan pastries are best known abroad by their French name, cornes de gazelle, or gazelle’s horns. They are stuffed with ground almond paste and curved into horn-shaped crescents. They are ubiquitous wedding party fare.

For this delicately scented fruit salad, have a mix of fruit chosen from three or four of the following: peaches, nectarines, apricots, bananas, plums, grapes, apples, pears, strawberries, mangoes, melon, pineapple, dates, pomegranate seeds.

These exquisite pastries called “the bride’s fingers” feature in medieval Arab manuscripts found in Baghdad, fried and sprinkled with syrup and chopped pistachios. In Morocco, they are made with the thin pastry called warka or brick (see page 29) and deep-fried. I prefer to make them with fillo and to bake them. For a large-size version of the pastries, I use a supermarket brand where the sheets are about 12 inches × 7 inches. I especially recommend you try the dainty little “bride’s fingers” (see Variation). I make them for parties and I keep some in a cookie tin to serve with coffee. They are great favorites in our family; my mother always made them and now my children make them, too.

Traditionally, the Berbers first made couscous with barley, and barley couscous is still very popular, especially in the south of Morocco. It is now available in precooked form from some Middle Eastern stores. You can substitute ordinary couscous. You can make the broth with lamb, beef, or veal (preferably shoulder, neck fillet, or knuckle) and with a choice of vegetables. According to local lore, seven is a magic number that brings good luck. Onions, tomatoes, and chili peppers count as flavorings, so you must have seven more vegetables. I have listed eight, so drop one. The number of ingredients makes it seem a scary endeavor, but it is only a matter of throwing things into a pot, and it makes a spectacular one-dish meal for a large party. You will need a very big pot.

In Morocco, men are masters of the fire, in charge of the brochettes, the small kebabs threaded on little wood or metal skewers, which are traditional street food. The ground meat kebabs are deliciously aromatic—full of fresh herbs and spices. The meat is usually pressed around skewers and cooked over dying embers, but it is easier simply to pat the meat into sausage or burger shapes and cook them under the broiler or on a griddle. There should be a good amount of fat (it melts away under the fierce heat), enough to keep the meat moist and soft. Otherwise, work 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil into the paste. Bite-size keftas can be served as appetizers at a party, but en famille burger-size ones, accompanied by a salad, represent a main dish.

This is sumptuous and extremely easy. The meat is cooked very slowly for a long time until it is meltingly tender and you can pull the meat off the bones with your fingers. The stuffing—it is the traditional stuffing for a whole lamb—is sweet with dates and raisins and crunchy with almonds. (In Morocco, they add sugar or honey but that makes it too sweet for me.) The couscous needs plenty of butter as there is no sauce, but you can substitute oil if you prefer. Try to get the fine-ground variety of couscous called seffa (see page 28), otherwise use the ordinary medium-ground one. For the dates, use the Tunisian Deglet Nour or Californian varieties that you can find in supermarkets. A shoulder of spring lamb is always fatty but most of the fat melts away during the long cooking. If it appears too fatty, as might be the case with an older lamb, carefully remove some of the fat before cooking.

I have used the ingredients of a chicken tagine as a relish to accompany duck (which is not a Moroccan bird) because the combination of fatty duck with sharp apricots is great.

This is great and also easy to make. Use a moist variety of dates such as the Deglet Nour of Tunisia or Californian ones. If you cannot get the special pigeons or squabs use small poussins.

This is the best-known Moroccan chicken dish. It was the only one, apart from appetizers, served during an evening of Arab poetry and storytelling, accompanied by musicians, that I attended in a Paris restaurant. The olives do not have to be pitted. If you find them too salty, soak them in 2 changes of water for up to an hour.