Cookbook 19: a little taste of… morocco

I bought this cookbook for Scott for Christmas one year, the same year he bought me a Tagine.  At the time it was sold by Oxfam a shop I love to wander around in.  The recipes are neatly laid out, with insert photos of tricky or possibly confusing steps, the instructions are easily understood, and I love the way the book is broken into themes – street food, home cooking, banquet food, and coastal food.  A little taste of… morocco is still in print (YAY) and apart from now falling apart (spine separated from body), I highly recommend it.

Spiced Carrots

Ingredients:

• 500g carrots, peeled and cut into 6 x 1.5 cm sticks
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Method:

1. Cook the carrots in boiling, salted water for 10 minutes or until tender.  Drain and toss lightly with the paprika, cumin, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil.
2. Place in a serving bowl, cover and leave in the refrigerator for 2 hours for the flavours to develop. Season with salt.  Serve warm or at room temperature

Notes on this recipe

• It’s really really simple, quite cheap – I had all the ingredients at home minus the parsley (but am planning on growing some).
• It’s also really tasty – this was most people’s favourite dish of those who came around for dinner.  I’ll definitely be making this again as a salad/side dish for BBQs and family events.

Tagine of chickpeas

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon harissa or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 x 420g tins chickpeas
• 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped coriander

Method:

1. Put the olive oil and onion in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat for 7 – 8 minutes, or until softened.  Stir in the garlic, the harissa or cayenne pepper, and the spice and cook gently for 2 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and sugar and season, to taste.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, drain the chickpeas and put them in a large bowl with enough cold water to cover well.  Lift up handfulls of chickpeas and rub them between your hands to loosen the skins.  Run more water into the bowl, stir well and let the skins float to the top, then skim them off.  Repeat until all the skins have been removed.
3. Drain the chickpeas again and stir them into the tomato mixture.  Cover and simmer for 20 – 25 minutes, adding a little more water if necessary.  Stir through the parsley and coriander and season, to taste.  Serve with crusty bread or with couscous.

Notes on this recipe:

• Removing skins from chickpeas is fiddly – but not difficult.  Eventually we started taking the chickpeas out of the water and ensuring we’d removed the skin from all of them.
• We used cayenne pepper as I wasn’t going to open a jar of harissa just for this recipe.
• It was quite tasty, well all the dishes were.

Slow-cooked beef with herbs

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chuck steak or boneless beef shin
• 1 1/2 onions, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons ras el hanout (see below)
• 1/2 teaspoon harissa or 1/4 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 1/2 preserved lemons
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley

Method:

1. Trim the beef and cut into 2.5cm pieces.  Place the beef in a deep casserole dish.  Add the onion, garlic, oil, ras el hanout, harissa or cayenne pepper, the black pepper, and season with salt. Toss the meat with the marinade.  Preheat the oven to 140C.
2. Halve the tomatoes crossways and squeeze out the seeds.  Coarsely grate the tomatoes down to the skins, grating them straight into the casserole.  Discard the skins.  Rinse the preserved lemons and remove the pulp and membranes.  Chop the rind into chunks, reserving some for the garnish, and add to the meat, along with the honey, coriander and 1 tablespoon of the parsley.  Stir will, then cover and cook in the oven for 3.5 hours.  Juices from the meat should keep the dish moist, but check after 1.5 hours of cooking and add a little water if necessary.
3. When the meat is very tender, transfer to a serving dish, scatter over the reserved lemon rind and garnish with remaining parsley.

Notes on this recipe:

• It was good, but not as rich as I was expecting it to be.
• Grating tomatoes is kinda fun

Warm eggplant salad

Ingredients:

• 2 x 450g eggplants
• 3 tomatoes
• olive oil for frying
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped coriander leaves
• 2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 preserved lemon (optional) or fresh lemon slices to serve

Method:

1. Using a vegetable peeler, remove 1 cm wide strips of skin along the length of each eggplant.  Cut the eggplant into 1cm slices, sprinkle with salt and layer the slices in a colander.  Leave for 20 – 30 mins, then rinse under cold running water.  Drain, squeeze the slices gently, then pat them dry with paper towels.
2. Peel the tomatoes by first scoring a cross in the base of each one using a knife.  Put in a bowl of boiling water for 20 seconds, then plunge into a bowl of cold water to cool  Remove from the water and peel the skin away from the cross – it should slip off easily.  Cut the tomatoes in half crossways and squeeze out the seeds.  Chop the tomatoes and set aside.
3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan to a depth of 5mm.  Fry the eggplant slices in batches until browned on each side and set aside on a plate.  Add more oil to the pan as needed.
4. Using the oil left in the pan, cook the garlic over low heat for a few seconds.  Add the tomatoes, paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper and increase the heat to medium.  Add the eggplant slices and cook, mashing the eggplant and tomato gently with a fork. Continue to cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.  When the oil separates, drain off some of it if it seems excessive; however, some oil should be left in as it adds to the flavour of the dish.  Add the coriander and lemon juice and season with freshly ground black pepper and add a little salt if necessary.  Transfer to a serving bowl.
5. If using preserved lemon, rinse under cold running water and remove the pulp and membranes.  Chop the rind into small pieces and scatter over the eggplant, or alternatively, garnish with slices of fresh lemon.  Serve warm or at room temperature with bread.

Notes on this recipe:

• We ended up having to dunk the tomatoes into the boiling water a second time as they really didn’t want to let go of their skins.  Total time in boiling water – probably closer to 35 seconds.
• This dish is really oily, it’s also very tasty, but that oil… eggplants LOVE to soak up all the oil.  I don’t have a solution for this specifically other than to roast the eggplants with a good coating of oil for about 20 – 30 mins at 180C – which would probably make them less oily overall.

Ras El Hanout

Ingredients:

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 teaspoons ground coriander
• 6 teaspoons ground nutmeg

Method:

• Combine all ground spices and store in a tightly sealed jar.