plate 18: morocco

I read a quote the other day that said: “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” So that’s where I’ll start. Flicking through the North African Cooking book my lovely friend Sal lent to me, I came across a recipe that’s very special to me: ghorayebah (pronounced oy-ah-reh-ba). Mem – my grandmother – used to make these shortbread biscuits for special occasions and they were my absolute favourite things ever. She dusted them generously with icing sugar and they had the ultimate melt-in-the-mouth texture. All these years I never knew which country they came from, but the Tess Mallos cookbook says they’re a favourite in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya.

I was really excited to cook them. Sadly, the result was not as exciting as I'd hoped. I started really well, making a smooth almond dough then shaped neat little balls and popped them on trays. I diligently checked their progress in the oven, swapping the trays every so often so they’d cook evenly. The recipe instructed not to cook them for too long or the taste would be ruined, so I wanted to make sure they were just right.

As I like to try to follow a good time-management plan in the kitchen,  as the biscuits baked I set to work on the tagine – Morocco’s national dish (it’s the name of both the slow-cooked dish and the cone-shaped pot that it’s cooked in) – coating the lamb shanks in spices, making sure they were browning nicely … well the shanks were by that stage, but my biscuits were a little too well browned (oops). As I rushed to open the oven door, smoke billowed out and three-quarters of my bikkie batch had black-as-night bases. Tears? Almost. But it didn’t stop AJ from tasting the top of one of them. “Mmmmmm, they’re good,” is what I deciphered. We proceeded to munch the tops of them and, although not as melt-in-the-mouth as my grandmother’s (this wasn’t her recipe though), they were still tasty. I was still devo that I wouldn’t be able to serve them to my dinner party friends, but bless the boy: “let’s save them,” he said, as he started carefully scraping off the burnt bums. He even arranged them nicely on the tray.

As well as the cookbook, Sally lent me her tagine, which is a really cool kitchen tool. I've been wanting one for a little while, but haven't got around to getting one. You can cook a tagine in a casserole dish or a large saucepan, but for the fun factor, use a tagine. They’re good because most of them can go in the oven and on the stove, and they look good when you bring them to the table and serve from them.

 To go with the tagine I served couscous – a Moroccan staple – cooking it with a little butter. I’ve always read that to cook couscous you just need to pour it into a bowl, pour over enough boiling water to cover it, then cover the bowl with Glad wrap and let it steam for about 5 minutes. This fails me every time. While it’s edible, it's always a but gluggy – I never achieve that light fluffiness. Can anyone help?

The other side was a simple tomato, capsicum and onion salad, sprinkled with a little ground cumin for a kick of flavour and preserved lemons that had been marinating on my kitchen bench for four weeks. They’re really easy to make by the way – the work is done for you by the lemons just sitting in the jar with salt, spices and lemon juice.

Oh, and I also made two dips: a hummus-coloured butter bean dip and bessara, a broad bean dip that had waaaaaay too much garlic in it - I had to add more broad beans to it with the help of Al who arrived just as I'd tasted it and almost set my mouth on fire. Yes, apparently too much garlic can do this. (Note, I used frozen broad beans instead of dried cooked ones, so I most likely had the quantities wrong.)

Other than a few little hiccups, I think things went pretty well, and dear Sal, who is also ice-cream maker extraordinaire, brought over a rosewater fro yo (frozen yoghurt), which was a superb way to round out the meal.