The atlas · A cuisine · Morocco

Moroccan

Slow tagines, steamed couscous and sweet-savoury pastries, scented with warm spice, preserved lemon and handfuls of fresh herbs.

Where it comes from

The Amazigh (Berber) peoples gave Morocco couscous and the clay tagine. Arabs arriving from the seventh century brought new spices and the habit of cooking meat with fruit and honey, and Muslims and Jews leaving al-Andalus in the centuries after 1492 brought refinements that settled in Fes, Tetouan and Rabat.

Caravan routes across the Sahara and ports on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean kept the spice markets full, and the French protectorate of the twentieth century left bread, pastries and café culture. Much of the best cooking is still done at home, learned by watching rather than from recipes, and the great dishes belong to occasions: couscous on Friday, pastilla at weddings, harira in Ramadan.

Where in it

  1. FesThe old capital and the seat of refined, Andalusian-touched cooking: pastilla, sweet-savoury tagines and mqualli sauces, and bissara ladled out in the medina on winter mornings.PastillaChicken with preserved lemon and olivesBissara
  2. MarrakechThe red city, known for tanjia slow-cooked in the ashes of the hammam furnaces, and for the grills, snail stalls and soups of Jemaa el-Fna at night.Tanjia
  3. EssaouiraA windy Atlantic port where the catch is grilled on the harbour and cooked into tagines under charmoula; argan oil comes from the country around it.Fish tagine with charmoula
  4. TangierOn the strait, facing Spain, and eating like it: kalinte sold hot from street carts, sardines, bissara, and Spanish and French traces in the bakeries.Kalinte

How it cooks

The tagine
A clay pot with a conical lid over low coals: little water, long cooking, the steam running back into the pot.
Steaming couscous
Semolina grains steamed two or three times over the stew, rubbed with water and butter between, until each grain is separate and light.
Charmoula
Coriander, parsley, garlic, cumin, paprika, lemon and oil — a marinade for fish above all.
Sweet with savoury
Prunes, dates, honey, cinnamon or sugar with lamb or chicken — the Fassi habit, held in check by salt and spice.

Always in the kitchen

preserved lemonsgreen olivesolive oilcuminsweet paprikaground gingerturmericcinnamonsaffronras el hanoutflat-leaf parsleycoriandercouscoussmen

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

MoroccanChicken with preserved lemon and olivesChicken braised with onion, ginger, saffron and turmeric until the sauce is thick, finished with preserved lemon and green olives.No one here has made it yetMoroccanCouscous with seven vegetablesSteamed couscous heaped round meat and a broth of seven vegetables — carrot, turnip, squash, courgette, cabbage, tomato, chickpeas — with broth to pour over.No one here has made it yetMoroccanPastillaA round pie of paper-thin warqa pastry filled with spiced pigeon or chicken, eggs and sugared almonds, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon.No one here has made it yetMoroccanHariraA soup of tomato, lentils, chickpeas and a little lamb, thick with herbs and thickened at the end with flour, served with lemon and dates.No one here has made it yetMoroccanMsemenSquare, flaky pan-fried flatbreads, folded over oil, butter and semolina, eaten with honey and butter and mint tea.No one here has made it yetMoroccanZaaloukAubergine and tomato cooked down with garlic, cumin and paprika, mashed, and eaten warm or cold with bread.No one here has made it yetMoroccanChebakiaStrips of spiced sesame dough folded into flowers, fried, soaked in hot honey and covered in sesame seeds.No one here has made it yetMoroccanTanjiaBeef or lamb packed into a tall clay urn with preserved lemon, garlic, cumin, saffron and smen, and cooked for hours in the embers.No one here has made it yetMoroccanFish tagine with charmoulaFish marinated in charmoula, laid over potatoes, tomatoes and peppers with preserved lemon and olives, and cooked slowly in the tagine.No one here has made it yetMoroccanBissaraDried broad beans cooked with garlic and puréed to a thick soup, finished with olive oil, cumin and paprika.No one here has made it yetMoroccanKalinteA baked custard of chickpea flour, water, oil and egg, cut in squares from the tray and eaten hot with cumin and salt.No one here has made it yet

How it got here

1492 and after · from GranadaAndalusian cookingMuslims and Jews leaving Spain after the fall of Granada settled in Fes and Tetouan, and are said to have brought pastilla and a taste for sweet with savoury.Pastilla →

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Moroccan yet.