Cook Club: Classic Moroccan meal gets a modern update

Apr. 7, 2016 11:45 am

Around the globe, the number seven is revered as lucky to many and sacred to some. In the North African country of Morocco the number seven is especially sacred when used in cooking. The midday meal is served with seven salads on small plates. The typical Friday meal of couscous is topped with seven vegetables. Tradition and ritual abound in the kitchens and dining rooms of Morocco making for an intriguing focus for April's Gazette Cook Club. This month's recipe, Lucky Seven Moroccan Couscous Salad, draws from this history by featuring what might as well be the country's national dish, couscous, as well as celebrates seven important ingredients and seven spices used in Moroccan cuisine.

I had a brief obsession with Morocco as a child. Thanks to a trip to Epcot Center in Orlando I was able to step into the world of this small country located just south of Spain. I came out of this microcosm with an interest in the bright colors and warmth of this country as well as a bracelet made of Moroccan coins that I wore until the silver burnished.

To this small-town Iowa girl Morocco was exciting and vibrant. While the bracelet is long gone I kept a few postcards from my visit that display woven drawings of women in festive attire. Now as an adult, Moroccan food intrigues me much in the way the attire of the country did when I was a child — it's layered, rich and complex flavors beget a deep story and history that prods me to want to delve further.

For us, couscous is often treated more as a side dish, much like rice. In his cookbook, Mourad: New Moroccan, chef Mourad Lahlou says couscous is never served as a side dish. 'It is served one way, and one way only: steamed over a broth with meat and/or vegetables, mounded on a huge platter, and topped with the ingredients over which it is steamed. Always.'

Couscous is also much like a way of life in Morocco. The traditional Friday couscous meal typically starts with a group of women sitting on the floor with a terra-cotta tray on each lap, hand-rolling semolina, water and flour into tiny, rolled balls of pasta. This dish is served on Friday because in Islam it is the holiest day of the week, a meal to be consumed after the midday prayer ritual done at the mosque. Lahlou says that it's believed each granule of couscous is a blessing from God and families share this blessing by making enough to feed their family and take to the mosque to feed the poor who eat there after prayers.

As is my goal for this year's international Cook Club spin, I wanted to create a dish that honors the traditional fare without being wholly traditional. Gone was the idea of making hand-rolled couscous knowing that I, like many of you, don't necessarily have the time for such a worthy venture. If you can find a longer-cooking couscous that needs to be steamed (as the hand-rolled does) it will most certainly give you a more authentic flavor. But since I had trouble finding this myself, I instead opted for buying couscous in the bulk section of my grocery store.

I did include both seven ingredients and seven spices in my couscous salad. Although the seven ingredients are typically all vegetables, I chose to do a mix of vegetables and other commonly used Moroccan ingredients — chickpeas, golden raisins, olives and feta. My seven spices of choice (also widely used spices in Moroccan cooking) are salt, pepper, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, cumin and garlic.

Another widely used ingredient besides couscous in Moroccan cooking is preserved lemon. Preserved lemons are essentially pickled whole lemons, which are then used in tagines (a sort of stew that is named after the earthenware pot it is cooked in) as well as couscous dishes, salads and even salad dressings. Lahlou says that preserved lemons are to Moroccan cooking what soy sauce and fish sauce are to Asian cooking. They give that umami element that helps elevate every dish with a flavor that is almost indescribable — salty, strongly citrus and pleasantly acidic.

If you can get your hands on preserved lemons, (which I was unable to in our area and ran into trouble with the freshness of the ones I purchased off Amazon) you can add some finely diced in place of the lemon zest I used in the dressing. The Internet also abounds with recipes for making your own preserved lemons which take anywhere from three to four weeks to brine. The process is pretty simple and the end result lasts for years. I have been making couscous salads for years and one of the things that I love about this dish is that since it is not a greens-based salad, it lasts much longer. A regular pasta dish would get soggy after a few days in the refrigerator, but because the grains of couscous are tiny it fares much better. This is a salad you can make on Sunday and take to work for lunch throughout the week. You know it will still be as good as the first day you ate it. This is good luck in my book and a recipe worth many a repeat.

Recipe: Lucky Seven Moroccan Couscous Salad (Serves 6 to 8)

— Couscous

— 2 cups couscous

— 1 1/2 cups broth or water

— 1 tablespoon olive oil

— 1/4 teaspoon salt

— 1/4 teaspoon pepper

— 1/2 teaspoon coriander

— 1 teaspoon turmeric

— 1/2 teaspoon cardamom

— 1/2 teaspoon cumin

— 3 cloves garlic, pressed

— 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

— 1 cup golden raisins

— 1 cup shredded carrot

— 1 cup snap peas, trimmed and diced

— 1 cup cucumbers, seeds removed and diced

— 1 cup feta, cubed

— 1 cup green olives, pits removed and halved

Dressing

— Zest and juice of 2 lemons (about 1/4 cup juice is the goal)

— 1/4 cup tablespoon olive oil

Place broth and the seven spices (salt through garlic) into a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, pour in couscous and bring back to a boil. Take off heat, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove lid and use fork to fluff couscous. Pour into large bowl.

Once couscous cools slightly, add in the seven ingredients (chickpeas through olives) and stir to incorporate.

In small bowl, whisk together the lemon zest, juice and olive oil to make dressing. Pour over couscous mix and gently work in dressing.

Serve at room temperature or place in refrigerator to serve later.

Moroccan cookbooks to explore:

• 'Mourad: New Moroccan' by Mourad Lahlou

• 'Moroccan Modern' by Hassan M'Souli

• 'The Food of Morocco' by Paula Wolfert