Morocco

World on a Plate: couscous in Marrakech

World on a Plate: couscous in Marrakech

If you're as crazy as we are for the melange of spices in ras el hanout, you're also probably equally fond of couscous and the various soups, or tagines, that accompany it. Couscous is treated like a grain, but it's actually a pasta made from semolina flour. We know that because one of us spent a significant amount of time rubbing and rubbing the granules with olive oil to ensure that the couscous would ‶steam up light as air,″ in the words of our teacher at Marrakech's Souk Cuisine Cooking School (soukcuisine.com). It was a cooking class that radically changed our cooking habits. In fact, that's the couscous we helped make pictured above. It happens to be with a tagine featuring pumpkin, sweet onions, carrots,...Read More
‘Orange Blossom & Honey’ conjures memories of Marrakesh

‘Orange Blossom & Honey’ conjures memories of Marrakesh

We never had a bad meal in Marrakesh. Reading John Gregory-Smith's new cookbook, Orange Blossom & Honey: Magical Moroccan Recipes from the Souks to the Sahara (Kyle Books, $29.99) brings back delicious memories of smoky meat from the outdoor grills on Jemaa el Fna and tagines with the tangy flavor of preserved lemon served in pretty little restaurants with tables arrayed around burbling fountains. In a cooking class in the courtyard of a riad in the heart of the souk, we learned to make couscous “as light as air” and a variety of vegetable salads that have become mainstays of our diet. Here's a link to some of those recipes. As Gregory-Smith demonstrates, there's much more to discover about Moroccan cuisine. He traveled from “the...Read More
Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

The Boston Globe recently published our abbreviated tale of taking a cooking class with the wonderful Dutch and Moroccan folks of Souk Cuisine in Marrakech. You can find the piece on our Sample Articles page. It was some of the best cooking instruction we have experienced because it enabled us to get intimately involved in the life and rhythm of the city and its inhabitants. Even if your goal is to bargain your way through the souks (Pat was told she bargained like a Berber), it is hard not to work up an appetite when you keep encountering vendors like the back-street fruit man (above) or the citrus juice truck that stands on the main square, Jemaa El Fna. Everywhere you look, there is food....Read More