Discover traditional Moroccan dishes

Typical Moroccan dishes

The flavour journey begins with breakfast. This usually includes mint tea, bread and sweet pancakes. While some Moroccans have taken to toasted baguette, others have stayed true to harcha, a type of semolina flatbread of Berber origin. As well as the thousand-hole pancakes, known here as baghrir, people eat msemmen and rziza (puff pastry pancakes) in the morning. For an energy boost before a morning at work or spent touring the kingdom's greatest sites, sweet pancakes are topped with honey, jam, fromage frais or butter.
 Lunch is eaten at home. Parents and children come home from school to share this meal, which is the heartiest of the day. It generally begins with a salad or green vegetables. For example, you can enjoy an aubergine caviar with garlic, zaalouk, or bakoula, a spicy salad of steamed spinach.

Then come the main dishes. Moroccan couscous is very popular and was brought to us by the Berbers. It's said that the best couscous can be found in villages like Ouarzazate or Tinghir. Another Berber speciality: tajine. This stew with semolina is simmered in an earthenware dish for several hours. With meat or fish, vegetables, chickpeas or prunes, the possibilities are endless. Every cook has their own recipe and secret spices.

If your getaway takes you to Marrakech, don't leave without first tasting Tanjia Marrakchia. Legend has it that this Moroccan dish was invented by labourers. Every morning, before going to work, they would put the ingredients they had found at home in an earthenware pot. Then they would heat up the mixture in the nearby hammam for the whole morning. Today, Tanjia is prepared with veal or mutton shank and cooked in the ashes of a wood-fired oven.

Try and leave a bit of room for dessert. Cakes and pastries are kept for celebration days. On a day-to-day basis, people prefer to serve an orange and mint salad with cinnamon or dates. But Moroccans are renowned for their hospitality. Your host might invite you to celebrate your meeting with a ghribia. This shortbread flavoured with lemon or orange blossom is a twist on the Andalusian mantecados.

 In Morocco, after school, children don't have "tea" but a kaskrot. This includes the same food as at breakfast: hot and cold drinks, pancakes, Moroccan bread and accompaniments.
 After a day like that, dinner is a lighter meal. It often consists of leftovers from lunch or a soup. Loubia, a soup made of haricot beans with meat and tomato sauce, is a typical Moroccan dish eaten in the evening. It's also an ideal way to restore your strength after a hike in the Atlas mountains.

 Moroccan dishes are accompanied by mint tea and bread. You will be served batbout, a soft, round bread roll, a mahrarch, a pancake with a hard crust or a slice of khobz, a round loaf made from wheat semolina. When mint tea is served with dessert or in between meals, it comes with gazelle horns. This Moroccan biscuit is made of orange blossom-flavoured marzipan in a shortcrust pastry shell. In Rabat, the pastry is replaced by caster sugar.

Celebration dishes

Private events, like weddings and births, or religious celebrations such as Eid al-Adha are an opportunity to meet up and enjoy less commonly served dishes.

 Eid al-Adha, one of the most important Muslim celebrations, celebrates Ibrahim's faith. When he was about to sacrifice his son to fulfil the divine command, the Angel Gabriel intervened to substitute a sheep for the child. So it is traditional to eat lamb or mutton on that day. It can be part of a sweet Moroccan tajine , Mrouzia, or served as a méchoui. The whole animal is spit-roasted or braised in an earthen oven. If you are invited to a méchoui and they serve you first, congratulations, you are a distinguished guest!

At receptions, for weddings or engagements in particular, women make pastillas. This speciality from Fez is a cake made from sheets of brik pastry and sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon. The sweet version is topped with cream, almonds and sesame seeds. But the savoury recipes are the most common. Usually filled with pigeon stuffing, the Moroccan pastilla also comes in chicken, fish and seafood versions.

Although celebration meals are synonymous with champagne in our part of the world, this is not the case in Morocco, which is a Muslim country. Instead, you can enjoy non-alcoholic drinks like mint tea, soda, still or sparkling water and fruit or vegetable juice. If your host is not a practising Muslim or you are eating at a restaurant, you can order wine or beer. Take the opportunity to discover local products. Moroccan vintages have their fans. Casablanca, a blonde lager, even won a silver medal in the International Beer Challenge!

Dishes for Ramadan

The month of Ramadan, known as the blessed month or holy month, is a highlight in Moroccan life. For 29 or 39 days, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. During this period, believers are encouraged to concentrate on their faith and do good deeds.

The breaking of the fast (Ftour) is traditionally done by drinking a glass of milk and eating a few dates. But it's above all an opportunity to get together with family and friends. People share harira, a soup of Andalusian origin made from meat, lentils, tomatoes and onions. It is served hot, with hard-boiled eggs.
 Another Moroccan soup whose aroma signals the end of the fast: chorba. Given to the poor and served to the faithful after prayers, it is prepared with mutton, vegetables and vermicelli.

Fasting is practised in order to experience the hunger felt by the poorest in society. In theory, Ramadan meals are therefore less hearty than those consumed at parties or in everyday life. But they always end with sweet treats. One dessert on the table is briwate. This triangular or cylindrical pastry parcel is filled with almonds and flavoured with cinnamon and orange blossom. Alongside this is chebakia (or M’kharqa in Rabat, griwech in Fez or el qli in Salé). These different names all refer to a rolled pastry, fried in vegetable oil, coated with honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

 You don't need to be invited into a local's home to sample the cakes and Moroccan dishes that are typically served in the holy month. Ramadan dishes are available all year round on restaurant menus and on traders' stalls. 
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