Cooking with Fatima

 

When Michael and I plan our travels, I'm always looking forward to the cooking. I love making meals inspired by what you see and taste in a local market.

I cooked in Hanoi, on Bali, in the favela in Rio, in Paris. I try to cook everywhere, having my own take on some of the local dishes.

Here, in the Moroccan riad, I wanted to do the same at least a few times a week, but I soon found out even relative simpel cooking is difficult to plan, when you're living way out in a desert. 

You can't pop into a local shop, whenever you find out you need an ingredient. Here every buy has to be planned ahead and brought home by taxi.

But still, I needed to try my hands in a Moroccan kitchen and I asked Fatima, a local cook, who was hired to make most of our meals, if I could help her preparing.

The common way of cooking in the Berber communities, has for many centuries been doing tagines - dishes named after the earthenware pot in which they are cooked

A tagine consists of two parts: a circular base unit that is flat with low sides and a large cone-shaped cover that sits on the base during cooking.

The special lid traps steam and returns the condensed liquid to the pot. In this way you need a minimal amount of water to cook, which is practical in area, as ours, with limited water supplies.


I knew Moroccan tagine dishes are slow-cooked savory stews - typically made with sliced meat, poultry or fish together with vegetables or fruit and with added spices, nuts, and dried fruits.

Now I was about to co-create my very own!

 

Fatima took her teaching responsibility seriously and I was given a knife, a cutting board and some tomatoes, garlic and coriander to cut.

In the meantime, the tagine was put directly on the gas flames and the vegetables placed as they were chopped, then some oil and a selection of spices were added: Ginger, pepper, salt. turmeric and cumin.

And when the onions were sliced: No matter where in the world onions are cut, they make your eyes teary - and we laughed of our wet faces.

The tagine simmered on the gas, while Fatima asked, in broken French, about my life. If I had children and how old they were. She had a daughter almost the same age as my daughter - living with her husband and two children.

Now beef was added with no spices as they were already in the dish. Almonds, pre-cooked prunes and finely chopped parsley went in  -  and Fatima checked carefully everything I did. It should all live up to her high standards!

While the tagine simmered we made an apple cake baked in the old-fashioned gas oven.

It was a nice and cozy experience. Language didn’t matter, we understood was it was all about.

 

The dish was served to Michael and me at sunset - with half boiled eggs placed on top - and it tasted fantastic.

Tomorrow, she has promised, I can help her do another kind of tagine.

I look forward to it. When you begin to understand the food, you're having, you begin to understand the culture you're living in

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