1) Casablanca – My Moroccan Food, Recipes for Modern and Traditional Dishes.
Nargisse Benkabbou.
Firefly Books, 224 pages.
2) Olives, Lemons & Za’atar – The Best Middle Eastern Home Cooking.
Rawia Bishara.
Kyle Books, 223 pages.
3) Lebanese Home Cooking – Simple, Delicious, Mostly Vegetarian Recipes from the Founder of Beirut’s Souk el Tayeb Market.
Kamal Mouzawak.
Quarry Books, 160 pages.
Recipes - Moroccan Cuisine
Is there, in the age of the internet, still a place for recipe books? After all, anyone who wants a recipe for, say, a toasted kimchi sandwich only needs to google and within less than a second, dozens, if not hundreds, of recipes will flash on the screen.
If the books in question are the three above, then the answer is a definite yes. From a purely visual perspective, they are a pleasure to read. Filled as they are with beautiful photographs of the dishes themselves, as well as of places in their countries of origin, the recipes themselves are an even greater delight.
Retirement gave me enough time to take up cooking as a mildly serious hobby and I have since had the opportunity to test-drive many of the recipes. So far, every one has met with expectations, particularly those of my nearest and dearest whose taste buds have the gustatory equivalent of perfect pitch.
Moroccan cuisine has interested me for some time and number one on the list above is currently one of my favourites. Many of the recipes call for quite a few ingredients, allowing the opportunity to play around with tastes and textures, but it does bring about a slight potential complication inasmuch as that some of these ingredients may not be easily available locally.
This is needs not be a stumbling block because all the books give instructions on how to make many spice mixtures or condiments, such as ras el hanout (one of my favourites), how to preserve lemons, various kinds of harissa and so on.
If dried rose petals are hard to find for your ras el hanout, well, this spice mixture comes in many different guises; these petals aren’t essential and most other ingredients for numerous spice mixtures are freely available. And if you cannot get hold of this book, recipes for ras el hanout, za’atar and many others are available on the internet – all you need to do is to make friends with google and Bob’s your uncle.
But what if, like me, you can’t be bothered to actually make these spices, I hear you ask.
There is a simple solution: order from The Silk Road Spice Merchant.
The quality and variety of their spices are very impressive. (I have no financial interest in this business.)
Being Moroccan, the book of course contains quite a few recipes for tagines. This word refers to both the cooking vessel and the dish itself. If anyone wants to purchase a tagine, I’d recommend getting one with a stainless steel bowl and ceramic lid – a ceramic or clay base runs the risk of cracking when in contact with a hot stove plate.
I bought a tagine simply because when possible I like preparing dishes in the traditional manner, but one can get along perfectly well with any pot, such as a dutch oven, providing of course that it has a tight-fitting lid. The link at the end gives more information about tagines.
I very much enjoyed Rawia Bishara’s spiced lamb shank recipe – for some reason shanks (and mutton in general) do not appear to be popular in this part of the country – but this is only one of many delectable recipes in that book. Her stuffed chicken is also something special.
Kamal Mouzawak’s recipes are easy and mostly don’t call for such a variety of spices as the other two books.
Understandably enough, these books do not have any recipes for pork, but it is easy to adapt recipes for chicken, lamb or beef to accommodate pork.
Some recipes call for twenty or more ingredients, but most need only a few, are tasty and easy and to prepare.
These books are highly recommended for anyone who wants to experiment with home cooking slightly off the beaten path.
On tagines: https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-moroccan-tagine-2394748
