You Need to Try These 7 Delicious Moroccan Dishes
Moroccan food is one of the world’s great cuisines. It is known for hearty soups and stews, slow-cooked grilled meats, and colorful vegetables. These dishes are usually flavored with spices like saffron, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon. Lamb, couscous, eggplant, olives, and chickpeas are among the signature ingredients used in the North African country, where Berber and Arab culinary traditions blend with French and Spanish influence to create unique and flavorful dishes.
Here’s a look at some of the tastiest dishes Morocco has to offer.
1. Tagine
Tagine is both the name of a cooking pot and the delicious, slow-cooked stew that the pot is used to make. The pot, made of clay with a conical lid, promotes even cooking, ensuring every bite is rich with flavor. The signature stew, also named tagine, is often served at festivals and celebratory feasts as well as at roadside cafés and high-end restaurants.
There are many variations of tagine, although most feature either lamb or chicken along with couscous, olives, and apricots, which along with cinnamon provide a subtle sweetness to the dish. Other common ingredients include chopped onions, minced garlic, ginger, preserved lemon, and fresh coriander.
The beauty of tagine is that it’s completely customizable. It can be made with other protein, including beef and shrimp, or feature chickpeas as a vegetarian alternative. Tagine is always served with bread.
2. Lamb Shanks and Couscous
“Sitting around with sand in your toes, in the middle of the Northern Sahara, with the smell of roasting lamb in the distance [ . . . ] it feels pretty damn good,” the late chef and travel writer Anthony Bourdain remarked while dining with Berber tribesmen in Morocco.
While lamb is used in many Moroccan dishes, there is no dish more authentically Moroccan than lamb shanks slow roasted over an open flame. The result is a tender cut of meat that is often accompanied by almonds, mint, cilantro, and harissa, among other ingredients. Steamed couscous, a fine semolina wheat grain usually rolled by hand, and vegetables are served with most meat dishes in Morocco.
3. Fish Chermoula
Boasting more than 2,100 miles of coastline and the best fishing territory in the Atlantic Ocean, Morocco is a place where fish is a staple in the cuisine. Moroccans have access to numerous fish species, including common and horse mackerel, spotted and white seabream, anchovy, sole, and squid.
The fish is seasoned and grilled over hot coals, which creates a charred and crunchy exterior. Chermoula is a marinade and dipping sauce made with a blend of herbs and spices that adds a freshness and zest to the fish.
There are variations of chermoula, but most usually include fresh coriander and flat leaf parsley, garlic cloves, and cumin. Many so-called “red” versions use copious amounts of paprika, or even harissa. Some have lemon juice, ginger, turmeric, or preserved lemon. Moroccans often make small diagonal incisions in the fish to spread the chermoula. It can also be drizzled on the fish while cooking.
4. Harira
A play on a tomato soup, harira holds particular significance in Moroccan cultural practices because it is often eaten to break one’s fast during Ramadan. It features tomatoes cooked in a soup base composed of chopped onion, chickpeas, lentils, chopped celery stalks, and aromatic spices like cumin and ginger.
Harira is usually served with garnishes like fresh coriander and lemon slices or chebakia, a sticky sweet form of pastry. Outside of Ramadan, it’s a street food staple usually enjoyed during the winter months.
5. Makouda
A Moroccan potato-based twist on the beignet, makouda is a popular street food in the North African country. The potato cakes are formed with a mixture of boiled potatoes, chopped parsley and garlic, and salt and pepper. Then, they are covered in a turmeric batter before being deep fried in hot oil. The result is a crispy exterior with soft and fluffy potatoes on the interior.
Makoudas are usually eaten with a dipping sauce made with harissa, tomato paste, lemon juice, cumin, and salt. It is also often served in a sandwich with the same sauce.
6. B’stilla
A meat pie served as an appetizer or small plate, b’stilla is especially popular in Fez, which is considered by many the cultural capital of Morocco. The pie is made with paper-thin pastry and a filling with toasted almonds, pigeon meat that has been boiled and shredded, garlic, onion, cilantro, parsley, ras el hanout, saffron, and chili flakes. The pastry is dusted lightly with cinnamon and confectioners’ sugar.
7. Zaalouk
A smoky, tangy salad eaten as a starter or a side dish, zaalouk contains eggplant that is peeled, roasted, and then smashed before being cooked with tomatoes and garlic. It is spiced with cumin, paprika, and fresh coriander for garnish. It almost has the consistency of dip and is frequently eaten with bread. Like many other Moroccan staples, the dish varies by region, with some people adding red peppers.
