North African

This is sumptuous and extremely easy. The meat is cooked very slowly for a long time until it is meltingly tender and you can pull the meat off the bones with your fingers. The stuffing—it is the traditional stuffing for a whole lamb—is sweet with dates and raisins and crunchy with almonds. (In Morocco, they add sugar or honey but that makes it too sweet for me.) The couscous needs plenty of butter as there is no sauce, but you can substitute oil if you prefer. Try to get the fine-ground variety of couscous called seffa (see page 28), otherwise use the ordinary medium-ground one. For the dates, use the Tunisian Deglet Nour or Californian varieties that you can find in supermarkets. A shoulder of spring lamb is always fatty but most of the fat melts away during the long cooking. If it appears too fatty, as might be the case with an older lamb, carefully remove some of the fat before cooking.

Because they are small birds, with one per person, it is worth stuffing them. A few butchers sell the special baby Mediterranean pigeons or pigeonneaux or squabs. Otherwise, buy the smallest poussins possible.

This is great and also easy to make. Use a moist variety of dates such as the Deglet Nour of Tunisia or Californian ones. If you cannot get the special pigeons or squabs use small poussins.

This is marvelous! I use frozen artichoke bottoms that come from Egypt and are available here in Middle Eastern and Asian stores. You get about 9 in a 14-ounce package and that is enough for 4 servings.

This is the best-known Moroccan chicken dish. It was the only one, apart from appetizers, served during an evening of Arab poetry and storytelling, accompanied by musicians, that I attended in a Paris restaurant. The olives do not have to be pitted. If you find them too salty, soak them in 2 changes of water for up to an hour.

The couscous stuffing is the traditional one used for all birds, especially Mediterranean pigeons (the French pigeonneaux or squabs) and chickens. A generous amount of stuffing is made, enough to fill the chicken and to have some on the side, but it makes more sense not actually to bother stuffing the chicken. It is best to use the fine-ground couscous called seffa (see page 28) but you can use the ordinary medium one.

I love quinces and love this dish. Quinces are now available for a good part of the year since they are imported from several countries where their seasons vary. Follow the recipe for Chicken with Caramelized Baby Onions and Honey (page 85).

There are some excellent varieties of vacuum-packed or frozen chestnuts now available, making this dish very easy.

Morocco is a country of dates and there are several varieties. Use 3/4 cup dates of a soft, moist variety such as the Tunisian Deglet Nour or Californian ones that you can find in supermarkets. Remove the stones, replacing each one with a blanched almond.

This is one of my favorites. You will be surprised by just how good it is. Follow the recipe on the preceding page for Chicken with Caramelized Baby Onions and Honey. Choose firm pears; if the fruit is too soft, they tend to collapse during the cooking. Comice and Bosc are good varieties.

This is one of the classics of Moroccan cooking and this version, with shallots or baby onions, is sensational. The art is to reduce the sauce at the end until it is rich and caramelized. It is important to taste it in order to get the right balance between sweet and savory.

These prawns are deliciously rich in flavor and are good hot or cold. Serve them with mashed potatoes (see page 168) or with a little couscous (page 112) moistened with olive oil. Use raw king prawns: they are gray and turn pink when they are cooked. Some supermarkets sell them fresh and ready-peeled. You can also buy them frozen with their heads off from some fishmongers. The weight of these packs is inclusive of a thick ice glaze, which means that you need to double the weight—that is, for 1 pound of peeled prawns (about 25), you need a 2-pound package.

All kinds of white fish fillets can be cooked in this way, but I am particularly fond of skate wings with these flavors. The flesh is fine and delicate and easily parts from the layer of soft cartilaginous ribs. Small skate wings can be sautéed but the thicker, more prized wings of the larger fish must be poached (see Variations).

I like to make this dish with cod, but other fish such as bream, turbot, monkfish, and grouper may also be used.

Other large white fish such as sea bream and turbot can be cooked in this way. When you buy the fish, ask the fishmonger to scale and clean the fish but to keep the head on.

This is good hot or cold and can be made well in advance. The best fish to use is bream, cod, haddock, or turbot.

The marinade and sauce called chermoula that gives the distinctive flavor to this dish is used in most Moroccan fish dishes, whether fried, steamed, or cooked in a tagine. Every town, every family, has its own special combination of ingredients. Bream, haddock, and turbot can also be used.

Harira is the generic term for a soup full of pulses—chickpeas, lentils, or beans—with little meat, few vegetables, and plenty of herbs and spices. Every day during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset, the smell of this soup permeates the streets as every household prepares its own version to be eaten when the sound of the cannon signals the breaking of the fast. While ingredients and spices vary, a particular feature is the way it is given what is described in Morocco as a “velvety” touch by stirring in a sourdough batter or simply flour mixed with water. In the cities in Morocco, it serves as a one-dish evening meal, and in rural areas it is also eaten as breakfast before peasants go out to work in the fields. During Ramadan, it is served with lemon quarters and accompanied by dates and honeyed pastries. The soup can be made a long time in advance, but if you are adding the tiny bird’s-tongue pasta—douida in Morocco (you find it in Middle Eastern stores), orzo in Italian stores (or you can use broken vermicelli)—these should be added only about 10 to 15 minutes before you are ready to serve, otherwise they will get bloated and mushy. I have given measurements for a large quantity because it is a rich, substantial soup that you might like to serve as a one-dish meal at a party. The best cuts of meat to use are shoulder or neck fillet.

Bessara is the name of the soup as well as a creamy paste, made in the same way but with less water (see Variation). You can buy the split and skinless dried fava beans in Asian and Middle Eastern stores. They look creamy white without their dried brown skins.