Mint Tea & Tagine

So it seems my Wordless Wednesday has slowly morphed into a wordless week!!! I have a list of excuses as long as my arm for not blogging, but wont bore you with the details!

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to make a serious attempt at learning a new language, so Monday morning bright an early I am starting an intensive two week Moroccan Arabic course! I really struggle with languages (could be the dodgy memory) so am quite apprehensive about this! I don’t think that two weeks will be nearly enough, as I have only learnt about 10 words in two years, but it’s a start! And the fact that Arabic is possibly not the easiest language on earth doesn’t really help the matter!

So there’s my excuse for next week for being a terrible blogger!

In the meantime here are some more photos of our trip to Essaouira.

Shopping…….

Canons and islands…..

Doors and alleyways…..

And cats…lots of them….

Have a wonderful week everyone.

xxxx

Tags: cats, Essaouira, Family, holidays, Photographs, photography, shopping, Travel

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Tags: Fountains, Kasbah des Oudayas, Moroccan Food, Rabat, Spices, Travel

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I have longed to go to Essaouira since we arrived in Morocco almost two years ago. So as you may know we finally got to go down that way on New Year’s Day. Well, it was everything people said it was and more! What a gorgeous place, not even the debris on the beach from floods the previous week or the nip in the air could spoil the charm of the place.

Essaouira has a long and colourful history dating back thousands of years. It is a chilled, relaxed place on the coast with a very “bohemian” feel to it. It is very popular with surfers, artists and musicians and to me is the perfect place to have a gentle introduction to Morocco! Over the next few posts I will share some images of our time there.

So lets start in the spice souk. One of the spices often used in Moroccan cooking is Saffron. Morocco produces a small amount of saffron each year, mostly from an area in the South of Morocco called Taliouine. In Rabat the spice souks are mostly used by locals so English is not widely spoken, and my French/Arabic does not extend far enough to have a discussion about the quality of saffron with the shopkeepers, so I usually have to go with my gut feeling and the rule of thumb, if it’s too cheap, it’s no good!

I was very pleased to find an English speaking shopkeeper in Essaouira who showed me the quality difference between the real Moroccan Saffron and the cheaper stuff which was quite dry and powdery in comparison.

I used mine to make a wonderfully fragrant couscous stuffing for a roast chicken, inspired by a recipe from Julie Le Clerc’s gorgeous book, Made in Morocco.

Roast Chicken with Saffron Couscous Stuffing

1 Whole chicken

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper

For the stuffing:

½ tsp saffron strands

½ cup boiling water

¾ cup instant couscous

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tsp cumin

1/3 cup chopped dates

1/3 cup chopped almonds

Rind and juice of 1 orange

½ cup chopped fresh parsley, mint and coriander

Place the couscous, garlic, cumin, dates, almonds and orange juice and rind in a bowl.

Boil the water and diffuse the saffron strands in this for about 2 minutes.

Add the saffron water to the couscous, cover with cling film and leave to steam for about 10 minutes.

Use a fork to fluff up the couscous and add the herbs.

Rinse the chicken and dry thoroughly with paper towels. Stuff the couscous mixture into the cavity, pressing it in quite tightly and close this. I used a small skewer and then tied the legs together with string.

Bake in a preheated oven at 190°C for 1 ½ hours.

Before carving, leave to stand covered for about 10 minutes after removing from the oven.

I served this with some simple roasted butternut and steamed broccoli.

Have a great weekend everyone.

xxxx

Tags: Chicken, Chicken stuffed with couscous, chicken stuffing, couscous, dates, Essaouira, Food, holidays, Moroccan Food, Photographs, photography, Saffron, Souks, South of Morocco, Spices, Travel

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Tags: blogs, Kasbah des Oudayas, mint tea and tagine, Moroccan Food, Rabat, Travel

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There has been an unlikely combination of events and food in our life over the last week, things that shouldn’t rightly be together but just happened to be….snow and strawberries…

Morocco seems to have joined the rest of the Northern Hemisphere in the big chill and this last weekend we had a great time going to see the snow in Ifrane and the surrounding area which is about 2 hours from where we live. In South Africa snow is just not that common and we certainly never see much of it in the warmer parts so for us it is always an exciting event. It was freezing cold (-5°C) which was really chilly for those of us used to the milder climates of coastal Morocco!

The other thing here at the moment is strawberries, I am never sure when strawberry season is here as each year it seems to vary greatly. Last year I bought crates of them in the spring, but this year they have been cropping up in the markets since November. We had a very mild autumn and start to winter which may be why and I know they grow them in tunnels along the coast. But I have learnt in the close to two years we have been living here, that things in Morocco are not always as they should be!

Anyway, I had bought a whole lot last week and decided to make some quick and easy little strawberry and vanilla panna cotta for the kids. Really easy to make and really tasty with not too much added sugar!

1 cup cream

1 ½ cups fat free milk

1/3 cup castor sugar

1 vanilla pod

2 cups of strawberries, cleaned and chopped

6 leaves of gelatine (or 10g of powdered gelatine)

Prepare the gelatine by soaking it in water for about 10 minutes. (For more about preparing gelatine, click here). Squeeze out any excess liquid from the leaves and place these in a small saucepan with 4 Tbs of water and set aside whilst you heat the milk.

Prepare the strawberries and process in a blender till smooth. Strain through a sieve and set aside the strained puree.

Slice the vanilla pod open and scrape the seeds into the milk. Heat the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Gently heat the gelatine, stirring continuously until dissolved. Add the strawberries to the milk and cream mixture, blending in with a whisk and then add the gelatine and whisk until it is all blended together.

Pour into individual ramekins or pots and chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours. If you want to turn them out to serve, dip the ramekins in some warm water for a few seconds and turn out onto plates.

This made the equivalent of 7 x 125ml ramekins.

Tags: ifrane, mint tea and tagine, Moroccan Food, snow, strawberries, strawberry panna cotta

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Happy New Year everyone!! May it be a wonderful year for all of you and your families!

Well back to school, back to life and back to normality for us here in Morocco. It was a very short break for us but we did manage to do a day trip or two and a quick trip down the coast to a gorgeous town called Essaouria, which I will tell you all about one of these fine days.

At the moment it is cold and rainy here and there is a definite need for some comfort food! Beans….Spanish style…spicy and hot with some red pepper and chorizo….

For a quicker version you could use tinned butterbeans for this, but I used white beans that I soaked overnight in water and then cooked for about two hours with some onion, bay leaf, thyme and olive oil. Click here if you would like more info on cooking dried beans.

250g White Beans, soaked overnight and cooked

Or

2 tins Butter Beans

2 Tbs Olive Oil

2 carrots, diced

2 leeks, sliced

2 celery sticks, finely chopped

1 bay leaf

1 Tbs Thyme leaves

1 Tsp finely chopped red chilli (or more if you like it hot!)

1 large red pepper sliced

1 spicy chorizo sausage, sliced

2 cloves garlic finely chopped

2 tomatoes finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the carrots, leeks, celery, chilli, bay leaf and thyme and fry for a few minutes until softened. Add the garlic, red pepper and chorizo and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Add the prepared beans with about ½ cup of the liquid and the tomatoes and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes until the tomatoes are soft.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with some fresh bread.

Tags: bean, chorizo, essaouria, Family, Food, Gluten Free, Moroccan Food, Photographs, Recipes, red peppers, spain, white bean

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Wow, I cannot believe it is the last day of 2009!

 My heartfelt thanks for taking the time to read my blog and to comment, I look forward to seeing you again next year!

  I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a wonderful, healthy and prosperous 2010!

 Sana saʿida from Morocco.

xxx

Tags: Family, holidays, Photographs, Travel

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Once again my good intentions of baking beautiful things, cooking and photographing and of course blogging all whilst looking as cool and collected as Nigella have fallen by the wayside, and instead there seems to be the usual chaotic rush preparing for Christmas, wrapping presents and getting everything else organised for our Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch.

 We managed a quick overnight trip to Ceuta on the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the wonderful Christmas lights and the festive spirit which we miss here in Morocco.

Whilst we have escaped the severely cold weather that is plaguing a lot of Europe and America we have had a fair amount of rain and wind over the last week.

We will be celebrating Christmas here with several other colleagues and friends who will not be with their families for Christmas and are having a big Christmas Eve meal including dishes from Hungary, Sweden and the usual turkey and trimmings!

So dear friends, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May it be a peaceful time for you, full of love and happiness! For those of you travelling, do so safely!!

See you all after Christmas!

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I have really been neglecting this blog of mine over the last few weeks. It just seems a combination of sick children; cold weather and life in general have been getting in the way of all my good intentions of cooking and blogging! Enough excuses though…..

 I took a trip down to the Rabat Medina yesterday with my youngest and a friend to go to the fish market. Rabat never feels like a typical coastal town and it is often easy to forget that we are right by the seaside. Fish is a common feature on most menus in Morocco, often served simply fried in a light batter or in a tagine.

 Thursday is carpet souk in the Medina with woman bringing in their wares for auction to the local salesman. It seems to be a complicated system run by a gentleman who walks around in a coat with a lot of shouting going on, as you would expect at an auction. It is one of those times that I really wish I could understand more Arabic to make sense of what exactly it is that goes on. The color of the carpets are just such a feast for the eyes and no matter how many times I walk past there it still seems so exciting! Thank goodness the temptation to buy every carpet I see has been brought under control, more by the lack of financial means than my self control!

 The fish market was fairly quiet today and not much produce in. Weekends are a far better time to go, but I did manage to pick up some odds and ends and a kilogram of sardines for about US $1.30 per kilogram, and they fillet them for you on the spot.

 Sardines are a very popular fish in Morocco and are fairly inexpensive year round. Eating sardines always reminds me of being on holiday! We love them and getting them ready cleaned and filleted is just an extra bonus. I have been wanting to do stuffed sardines for ages after seeing the Sardines stuffed with Bulgar, Currants and Pistachios in the Ottolenghi Cookbook, but felt a bit lazy today so I did these layered in a pie dish with the stuffing on top. It was delicious.

500g filleted sardines (you could also use whole), lightly seasoned with salt and pepper

 ¼ cup bread crumbs (I used a Japanese type, but you could use ciabatta or similar)

2 Tbs Olive Oil + little extra

Zest of 1 orange and the juice of same orange

½ cup chopped flat leaf parsley

1 Tbs crushed garlic

2 Tbs pine nuts

Black pepper

Preheat oven to 220°C

Mix all the topping ingredients together.

Sprinkle a drizzle of olive oil on the base of a glass dish

Layer the sardine fillets in the dish and sprinkle the topping over.

Cook in the preheated oven for about 5-7 minutes, place under the grill for a few seconds to brown if you wish.

 This will serve 4 adults as a starter portion.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

 xxxx

Tags: Fish, Food, Moroccan Food, Photographs, Rabat

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Persimmons have been available for the last few weeks here in Morocco and of course when I saw them I had to buy some. I then left them languishing about until they were well and truly ripened (read, left them in the fruit basket and forgot about them!!!). You can read more about the different varieties of persimmon here . I had never eaten them before and found the fruit quite astringent even though it was well ripened. Perfect to bake with though!

 I made a loaf of persimmon and walnut bread with a recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com. It was delicious, very moist and very tasty, especially when left for a day!

½ cup persimmon pulp

1 tsp baking powder

300g white sugar

120ml Canola Oil

2 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp salt

80ml water

190g Cake Flour

½ cup chopped walnuts

 Preheat oven to 170°C (350°F)

Prepare a medium size loaf tin with baking paper.

Mix the persimmon pulp and baking powder and set aside for 5 minutes.

Mix together the sugar, oil, eggs, spices and salt.

Alternate mixing spoonfuls of the pulp, water and flour into the sugar mix.

Fold in the nuts.

Pour the batter into the pan, should be about 2/3 the way up the tin.

Bake for an hour, or until a skewer comes out clear. Remove from the tin and leave to cool.

  Have a wonderful weekend everyone and Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating!

Tags: Food, Photographs, Recipes

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