Travels With The Nanny, And Tagine 2.0

The Medina: steamy, colorful, bustling, grimy, with motorbikes persistently zooming along the narrow corridors, full of strange noises and smells and feral cats slinking around dark corners, men clad in djellabas selling everything from leather slippers to metal lanterns to pickled calves heads and clay tagines.

This is Marrakech. Specifically, the walled old city, whose thousand years of history have been left virtually untouched while a new city of sprawling hotels, McDonald's outposts, nightclubs, and the like, has sprung up around it. The Viking and I quickly found that most of the beauty in the Medina was to be found on the other side of unassuming doorways that open onto nameless alleyways. Our hotel, for instance, a charming seven-room riad called L'Orangeraie (riads being the Moroccan equivalent of B&Bs); chic cafes with sweeping views of the city; ancient mosques -- though in Morocco, these are only accessible to Muslims.

In Marrakech we were joined by The Viking's nanny. The Viking is quick to point out that she's his former nanny, as if it's a meaningful distinction. She happens also to be a fluent speaker of Arabic and an expert in all things North African and Middle Eastern, so we couldn't believe our luck when our schedules coordinated to be in Morocco at the same time.

The nanny is a fearsome haggler with local merchants and a formidable navigatrix of the maze of streets that comprise the Medina. She led us expertly to the best spice shops within Marrakech's sprawling tangle of souks, where I giddily bought enough cumin and saffron and the like to last us a year. We noticed that immediately upon joining up with the nanny we were no longer harangued by merchants looking to sell us their wares (or their directions), probably because we didn't look like such boobs anymore.


The nanny also toted us along to some of her favorite restaurants (while steering us clear of the food stalls that all the locals knew were apt to make you ill), so that by the end of our three days I felt that I had seen a cross-section of what Marrakech had to offer...without bringing home a parasite as a souvenir.

Eating around Marrakech affirmed what I already suspected: that in Morocco, the tagine is king (actually, Mohammad VI is king, but the tagine is close). Whether dining cross-legged in a tent in the High Atlas mountains, under the sweltering sun at a cafe in the city square, or bathed in candlelight at a high-end restaurant, we found the same basic repertoire: spiced vegetable salads, couscous with vegetables, and tagines of lamb, goat, or chicken.



If you recall, before we left on our trip I made a tagine from a New York Times recipe as a sort of warm-up exercise. It wasn't far off the mark, but here are some observations:

1. Proper Moroccan tagines can vary from being practically all meat to almost all vegetables; we found that there was always much more meat in the city, and a great quantity and variety of vegetables in the country.
2. No matter where you are, a tagine should have very little liquid left when it's done cooking. Keep it over low heat until the liquid is reduced to almost nothing.
3. A tagine is not traditionally served with/over rice, noodles, couscous, or anything else -- it is eaten on its own, or with bread.

Now that I've done my research, I thought I'd present a tagine redux.

It's important when making a tagine not to over complicate things for yourself. What do I mean by this? Well ideally, get yourself a Berber to make it for you-- that tends to keep things simple. But failing that, remember the main principles and experiment with the details: you're slow-cooking meat and vegetables, with some yummy flavorings mixed in. It's not rocket science.

There are limitless iterations of the tagine theme, and everyone flavors theirs differently. Our Berber in the mountains uses ginger, paprika, black pepper, and cinnamon in his tagines; our housekeeper in Marrakech likes to use ginger, saffron, preserved lemon, and black pepper in hers. The great thing about the Moroccan cuisine is that it's about humble, hearty, flavorful, food, not fussy technique -- that may be why my favorite tagines were the most rustic ones, eaten in a rural setting.

Tagines can be cooked in a pot/pressure cooker or a clay tagine -- I'm banking on you not having a tagine at your disposal, so I'll write the recipe for a pot. If you're using the tagine, all the ingredients should be added at once at the beginning, and then cooked with the lid on over a very low flame for 3-4 hours.



Rustic Tagine

Serves 4

1 lb. goat or lamb meat
1 red onion, chopped
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cinnamon
1 teaspoon pepper
1/3 c. vegetable oil
Handful of parsley and cilantro sprigs
1 lb. potatoes, peeled and sliced
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
6 prunes
Kosher salt
1/2 c. peas

1. Find a Berber.
2. If no Berbers are available, follow steps 3 - 8.
3. Place a large pot or pressure cooker over medium heat and add vegetable oil, meat, onion, herbs, and spices.
3. Cook meat until browned all over, 8-10 minutes.
4. Add 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 90 minutes if using a pot and 40 minutes if using a pressure cooker.
5. Add potatoes, carrots, and prunes, partially cover, and simmer until potatoes and carrots are almost tender and sauce is thick, about 15 minutes.
6. Add peas and tomatoes and cook for five more minutes, adjusting seasoning if necessary.