Moroccan cuisine is one of the most popular in the world. The unbelievable combinations of spices make their dishes exotic and flavorful.
Along the coastline of Morocco, fish and seafood are immensely popular - succulent tiger prawns fried with spices and white wine or squid in spicy chermoula sauce.
This type of sauce is used in the preparation of chicken or beef livers. It is composed of lemon juice and olive oil, mixed with garlic, coriander, green onions, cumin and coarse salt.
Moroccan batbout are small pitas with yeast that are used as a bread substitute. They can be made with various fillings - vegetable, meat and can even be sweet and eaten as a dessert.
The most widely used container for cooking is tajine. It is a glossy clay container with a tall lid that comes together to a point at the top. The name is used both for the container and dish made in it.
Tajine can be made in 3 ways - chicken with salted lemons, saffron, dates and walnuts is one. Fish tajine is made from various types of fish and seafood with tomatoes, herbs, raisins, honey and almonds. Meat tajine is made from sheep meat, onions, dates, prunes and walnuts.
Pastilla is a difficult to make dish, which is based on the contrast of tastes. A filling of meat - chicken, pigeon, fish, seafood and almonds, cinnamon, boiled eggs, herbs and spices, is placed between numerous very thin layers of fried dough.
Gayin el ghalmi is a goulash with mutton. You can make it yourself.
Ingredients: 17.5 oz of mutton, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 onion heads, salt, black pepper, 2-3 bay leaves, 4-5 cloves, some parsley, 1 pinch of saffron, 1 pinch of cinnamon, 2 tomatoes or 3 tbsp tomato paste, 2/5 cup of raisins, 3 1/3 tbsp of almonds.
Preparation: Cut the meat into pieces as for a goulash and fry in a deep pot. Add the crushed garlic, finely chopped onions, salt, black pepper, bay leaves, cloves, chopped parsley, saffron, cinnamon, finely chopped tomatoes or tomato puree and stew everything for 10 min.
Pour in water to cover everything, close with a lid and leave for 1 hour on the stove, stirring until the meat softens. Soak the raisins and toast the almonds ahead of time, then put them in to the pot with meat.
Stir everything well and pour it out into an oven dish. Place in a preheated oven for 15 min, until it gets a nice tan on top. Serve sprinkled with parsley and decorated with hard-boiled eggs that have been cut into halves.
