North African

Here is another Moroccan tagine. Buy the peas fresh and young, in the pod, when you can. Some supermarkets sell fresh shelled ones that are young and sweet, and frozen baby peas—petits pois—are also perfect to use.

A homely Egyptian dish using beef. Serve with rice or potatoes.

This is a common and much-loved dish of Egypt. You also find it in other countries. Use small okra—they are much nicer than the tougher large ones—and serve with rice or bulgur. Traditionally, okra is put in to cook at the same time as the meat, so that it becomes extremely soft and falls apart, but these days it is not uncommon to add it at a later stage, so that it remains firm. That is the way I like it.

The popularity of tagines means that they have eclipsed other methods of cooking in Morocco, such as steaming, where the meat becomes very tender and succulent. Serve choua with mashed potatoes and with vegetables such as zucchini or eggplants.

In Egypt this is the favorite kebab. It is also mine. I love the soft, moist texture of the meat, and the flavors of parsley and onion. The traditional way of preparing it is to chop all the main ingredients by hand, then to chop them together. They still do this in restaurants (where it is called kofta kebab or kofta alla shish)—but you can achieve good results with the blade of the food processor if you do each ingredient separately. For a moist, juicy kofta you need a good amount of fat. Most of it will melt away in the heat of the broiler. You will need skewers with a wide, thick blade to hold the ground meat and prevent it from rolling around. If you find it difficult, you can always shape the meat into burgers.

My aunt Latifa and uncle Mousa lived in a villa in a suburb of Cairo. It was large and housed their extended family. There was no oven. Much of the cooking was done over a mangal (portable outdoor grill) and a Primus oil heater, and trays were sent off daily to the baker to be cooked in the bread oven. This dish was sent to the baker.

Chicken with rice-and-ground-meat stuffing or hashwa is a classic festive dish of the Arab world. The old way was to boil the stuffed chicken first, then briefly roast it to give it a golden color. These days it is more common to cook the stuffing separately and to roast the chicken. For a large party you can make double the quantity, shape the stuffing in a mound in a large round oven dish, cover it with the cut-up pieces of chicken, then heat it through, covered with foil, before serving.

The last time I ate this famous Moroccan dish was in a restaurant in Paris where there was an evening of Arab poetry and tales accompanied by musicians. It was not the best example of the dish, but I always find it enjoyable. I love the special flavor of preserved lemons. At every vegetable market in North Africa, and now also in the south of France, you can see stalls laden with huge piles of soft lemons oozing with juice beside several varieties of olives. The two are often used together. The pulp of the preserved lemon is discarded, and the skin alone is used. The word mqualli alludes to the way the chicken is cooked, with oil and only a little water.

A magnificent dish, and a stunning example of the way Moroccans mix savory and sweet. Chicken pieces are first stewed with lemon juice and saffron, then baked with a topping of almonds and honey.

This Moroccan tagine is one of my favorites. The chicken cooks in the juice of the tomatoes, which reduces to a sumptuous, thick, honeyed, almost caramelized sauce. And it looks beautiful too.

An Egyptian delicacy.

Djaj is the Arabic word for chicken; ferakh is an Egyptian term. Every day, the trams and buses coming into the towns from the villages are crowded with peasants carrying crates of live, cackling poultry. The chickens are killed and plucked at the market or poultry shops. This is a simple and homely but delicious Egyptian way of cooking the birds.

In this delicately flavored and scrumptious Moroccan qdra, the long-cooked almonds should become very soft. As so often in Moroccan cooking, one onion is cooked first with the meat or chicken, and when these are nearly done, the remaining onions are added. The first onion is used to add flavor to the meat, and it practically melts and disappears into the sauce. The onions added later keep their shape and add body to the sauce.

Many years ago, hearing of her prestigious cooking, I went to see a woman in Casablanca. She received me in a pale-blue kaftan on a patio with turquoise-and-cobalt mosaics. She explained that her family was from Fez and that her cooking was Fassi, which is reputedly the most refined regional cuisine of Morocco. She had three cooks working for her, but when she had guests, even only one or two, she said she spent at least six hours cooking in the kitchen herself. I asked if there were ways of shortening the cooking times. She said no. Her daughter, who was studying law in the States, interrupted: “Yes, there are shortcuts, you don’t have to take that long.” Her mother was deeply offended. Were all those years that she had spent in the kitchen to please her family a waste, then? Were all her efforts to make things exquisite of little value? We cannot, of course, aspire to the extraordinary refinements of the grand family kitchens of Morocco, but we can achieve quite delicious results without much trouble. One of the recipes the lovely lady gave me was for pigeons stuffed with couscous. When she had a party, she prepared a huge mountain of couscous and covered it with little pigeons, shining and golden in their honey sauce. This is an extremely easy version of the grand dish. Using quick-cooking couscous makes it easy. You can double the number of pigeons for a dinner party, but then you will need more large saucepans.

Every year, migrating quails fly over the Mediterranean to Alexandria. Hundreds of the small birds fall, exhausted, on the dunes of the beaches of Agami, to be caught in large nets and collected in baskets. They are plucked and cleaned and marinated in a rich sauce, then grilled on the beaches over numerous little fires. Now quail farms are an important part of the local economy. Broiled quail are also a specialty of Lebanese restaurants, where they are served as mezze. The flavorings here are those of Alexandria.

The combination of chicken or meat with dates is very ancient in the Arab world. This recipe is inspired by a Moroccan one. I made it with baby partridge, which was delicious. You could also use small guinea hens or poussins. Use soft dried dates.

A wonderful dish. Even those who think it is not worth cooking quail because the birds are too small think this is delightful. In Morocco, ground ginger is used, but with fresh ginger it is particularly delicious. I peel and cut the root into pieces and squeeze them through a garlic press to obtain the juice. But if you are used to grating ginger, do that.

On a visit to Egypt, a hostess who invited me for dinner told us how she had run after the ducks that had escaped as she carried them home. There are many dishes of duck and chicken with quince in the Arab world. This one has the flavors of Morocco. The quince slices acquire a wonderful caramelized taste when they are fried.

One of the happiest memories of my childhood in Cairo is the outings in the company of several uncles, aunts, and cousins to an old restaurant called Le Café des Pigeons on the way to the Pyramids, where we feasted on charcoal-broiled baby pigeons. Huge platters, piled high with halved pigeons sprinkled with lemon juice and parsley, were brought to us in the ancient gardens of the restaurant, overgrown with jasmine and bougainvillea. The birds were so young and tender we could eat them bones and all. Mediterranean pigeons are like squabs. You can also use poussins (small spring chickens) in the same way. They are best grilled over dying embers, where they acquire a most seductive flavor and aroma, but you can also cook them indoors, over the heat of a pumice-stone rock grill or under the broiler. Serve them with salad and pita bread.

In Cairo a few years ago, I was invited to dinner by a woman who was living alone in the family villa after her parents had died. While she spent a month in hospital with her sick mother, squatters had built dwellings in the large garden. By now it was a few years since they had settled in, and she couldn’t get them out because of delays in the legal process. But I think she was lonely and had got used to them and was not trying too hard. The squatters had built a clay oven, and a dovecote where they kept pigeons; and chickens were running around. They grew all kinds of vegetables and herbs and gave her some of the produce. She watched their daily antics, noting that, while they quarreled all the time, the pigeons were loving and faithful towards each other. While her cook was preparing stuffed pigeons and minty broad beans with artichoke hearts for us, we watched the squatters cook their pigeons on the grill together with slices of eggplant and onion. Her recipe is one of my favorites. You will need the coarse bulgur, available from Greek and Middle Eastern stores. For a large and varied meal, you can serve half a bird per person. There is a large amount of stuffing because people like to have more on the side. Stuffed pigeon is one of the delicacies of Egypt, which you serve, as they say, “if you really want to show somebody you love them.” The stuffing is most commonly rice or ferik (young green wheat), but bulgur is an easier and delicious alternative.