A Moroccan Feast

Our monthly cooking club get together was held last Friday. Our host this month had recently built a wonderful wood fired pizza oven and wanted to experiment with cooking some Moroccan tagines in it.

We were greeted with some lovely Palmiers to have with coffee. The following is a link to a recipe to make these simple but yummy pastry treats. The only ingredients you need are puff pastry and sugar so they are a great last minute recipe if you have unexpected guests. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sweet-Palmiers-106763

As the oven needed to be lit early so it could heat and then the coals could be pushed to the back to reduce the temperature for the tagines we decided to have a pizza for lunch while it was still hot. Our host had some pizza dough already prepared so we just added a mixture of yummy toppings and popped it in the oven. It was cooked in no time at all and delicious.

Moroccan food has has been influenced by many cultures including Mediterranean and Arab and uses a wondeful selection of spices. The meal is traditionally eaten in communal style with several dishes being shared by all.
To serve with drinks our host made some lovely Moroccan Lamb Filo Pies which were really filo triangles filled with Moroccan Lamb Mince flavoured with Baharat Spice Mix, which is a mixed spice blend commonly used in Arabic cooking. They were served with a mint yoghurt dip. This recipe is in Allyson Gofton's cookbook Slow which is full of slow cooker recipes. These were extremely nice!

All of the recipes we used today were from the Tagine cookbook by Ghillie Basan except for the dessert. We did modify them a little as both the tagines suggested cooking the onions and meats before adding the other ingredients but as we wanted to prepare all the dishes ready to go in the oven a few hours later we decided to just combine all the ingredients uncooked and I really don't think this altered the flavours. For this cooking club we wanted to try quite a few dishes so we decided to prepare the food together through the day and share it with our families for dinner.

We made a Spicy Chicken Tagine with Apricots, Rosemary and Ginger and a Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios. Unfortunately the oven was a little hot and the tagines were a little overcooked which dried them out but the flavours were still lovely. The chicken tagine was cooked in a traditional tagine dish and did not overcook as much as the lamb which was cooked in a cast iron casserole dish which obviously retained more heat.

Our host also made a stuffed pumpkin which was inspired by the recipe for a Tagine of Butternut Squash, Shallots, Raisins and Almonds.

Basically the pumkin was stuffed with a mixture of shallots, garlic, raisins, almonds, harissa paste and honey. Before serving the pumpkin flesh was mixed through the stuffing. Harissa Paste is a chilli paste popular in North Africa.

We had a clay pot so decided to try some whole potatoes cooked with rosemary and salt. Clay pots are very simple to use. They require soaking in water to prevent them cracking and need to be put in a cold oven to heat up but give a nice flavour and added moisture to the food being cooked in them.

We also roasted a whole leg of lamb which was seasoned with garlic and rosemary. Not Moroccan but delicious and tender!

There were two Moroccan Salads which were both very colourful, fresh and tasty. The first was an Orange Salad with Red Onions and Black Olives which was dressed with olive oil, lime juice, roasted cumin seeds, paprika and coriander leaves.

The second was a Country Salad with Bell Peppers and Chillies which was a bit like a salsa of onions, capsicums, chillies, celery, garlic, mint and parsley dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Finally we made a dish of buttery couscous to complement the wonderful Moroccan Feast. All of the dishes worked so well together and were a wonderful mixture of textures and flavours. We certainly tested the pizza oven and I can see many wonderful dishes being prepared in it in the future.

To finish off the meal we had an Almond and Pistachio Kulfi with a Melon and Mint Salad with Orange Flower Water. Kulfi is an Indian ice cream however this ice cream was perfect for our Moroccan Feast as it had the commonly used ingredients of pistachio nuts, almonds and rosewater in it. We added some coconut for extra flavour and texture. The Kulfi was frozen in disposable plastic cups and was very easy to tip out. The salad was made with honeydew melon, mint, honey and orange flower water which we didn't have so we made an orange sugar syrup instead. This was a lovely dessert and a perfect way to finish our fabulous feast.

This was another very successful cooking club experimenting with wonderful flavours and new cooking techniques.