Everywhere in Morocco, tagines are family fare

MARRAKESH, Morocco -- In the old part of the city known as the Medina, some streets are so narrow that if you hold your arms open wide, you'd wonder if you could touch the shops on both sides. If that happened, you would surely be knocking over stacks of cone-shaped earthenware dishes piled from the pavement to shoulder height, and more pottery dishes filled with aromatic mixtures simmering on makeshift charcoal burners.

This is the land of tagines, a word that applies to both the conical-topped pots, which go directly on the flame, and the food cooked in them, a dish of meat, lamb, or fish that is as important to Moroccan cuisine as couscous. But where couscous is for special occasions, tagines are family fare offered everywhere -- on the street, in cafes, and in fine restaurants -- and they're generally well-made wherever you go. But locals will tell you that they're best in the hands of an old-fashioned cook at home, and it goes without saying that the exceptional tagines are made by the mothers and sisters of the person relaying this information.

Like other North Africans, Moroccans mostly cook on gas or charcoal burners, since many homes don't have ovens. To bake bread, families send trays of ready-made dough to the local baker's as they might have centuries ago. Just before lunch, children often dash through the streets carrying home warm loaves on baking sheets covered with clean, tattered cloths. It's likely that the other food on the table is some sort of tagine.

Tagines look like casseroles. They're stewy, with lots of chopped onion and often tomato and pieces of fish or chicken, both on the bone, or morsels of lamb too tough for kebabs, simmered in the dish. What makes tagines unusual is the complexity of flavors from spices, including the ever-present turmeric, so the finished dish turns golden. Another essential ingredient, indispensable in the Moroccan pantry, is preserved lemon, which all cooks here keep on hand or buy at the markets. The abundant citrus fruits, which grow on trees inside the courtyards of many homes, are plucked from the branches and packed in salt, then left for a month, which removes the harsh acidic quality, mellows the flesh, and makes the taste hard to identify.

In 1973, when Paula Wolfert's "Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco" was published -- she wrote it after living there for several years -- no one outside the region had heard of the lemons, much less made them at home. They're now sold in Boston (see recipe) because preserved lemons have become a favorite newly discovered ingredient.

While in Marrakesh recently, I ate many tagines, including a very good, moist chicken dish prepared by the housekeeper in the guesthouse where I was staying in the Medina. She shrugged when I asked her how to make it, but showed me her well-worn tagine pots. A driver I hired a few days later told me that some pots have been used for so many decades and now have so many layers of spices, that the women think the pots make the food taste better.

I heard about cooking classes at the luxury hotel, La Maison Arabe, so walked over to see if I could go for a day. The hotel, which sanitizes Moroccan culture, is one of the few places in the largely Muslim old city where you can order alcohol. Classes are held across town in a recently built structure at the end of a walkway lined with rosemary bushes and olive and fig trees hiding a grand swimming pool. We ended up there after following a motorbike with 25 egg crates stacked on the back, carts pulled by donkeys carrying mounds of thistles, and all kinds of bicycles delivering fruits and other goods. Then we turned down a rutted dirt road into this Eden, built to look centuries old.

An English-speaking translator, Mohammed Nahir, gave a short lecture by the pool before we met the Old World cook, Aziza Lgrizmi (called a "dada"). "Average Moroccans eat tagine," said Nahir, explaining that they can be savory (the ones I've tried) or sweet (made with quince, pear, tomato jam, and cinnamon). "Unlike the French or Spanish," he said, "there is no saute." The entire dish goes into the pot. "The tradition is to overcook," he says, so the sauce is thick and reduced.

As for the cooking pot, Nahir prefers the unglazed Berber tagine, which has a rounded top with a hole in a little chimney for a vent. Apparently, the cone-shaped pots, which are mostly glazed, don't have holes for steam to escape. When it was time to go into the kitchen, Nahir kept up his banter, and though Lgrizmi was cooking, she offered little advice. Instead of merely translating simultaneously while she cooked, he was doing the teaching.

This tagine was made with turmeric, ground ginger, the chopped flesh of preserved lemon, tomatoes, ghee, and saffron. One interesting thing that Lgrizmi did is crush the saffron threads in a warm bowl with salt to get maximum aroma from this costly spice. La Maison does not use cumin, which is commonly called "lazy wife's spice" or "single man's spice," Nahir informed us, because it's often used instead of a mixture of more complex seasonings.

First the chicken and its seasonings were marinated briefly, then cooked over high heat; at that point the chicken was turned on both sides. Then it was boiled briefly, and finally simmered, skin side down, on low heat. The dish couldn't be simpler. It's essentially a golden chicken stew with lots of seasonings. Before serving, Nahir instructed us to sprinkle the dish with green olives, parsley, and fresh coriander, then he showed us how to take the rind of the lemon and cut it into the shape of a hand. "Fatima's hand," said Nahir, "to ward off evil spirits."

There was only one other student in the class, a businessman from Spain, and he and his wife joined me and my husband poolside to eat our tagines. It was sunny, breezy, and comfortable under an umbrella, and wine was served with lunch. The dish was outstanding.

Back in Boston, I try chicken tagine and several other Moroccan specialties at Tangierino Restaurant & Casbah Lounge in Charlestown. The tagine is served in a tagine pot The food is cooked in the traditional pot. It's nicely seasoned but without that long-simmered quality. It comes with french fries.

Later, on the phone, Casablanca-born chef and owner Samad Naamad tells me he makes the tagine with ground ginger, sweet paprika, cumin, saffron, and turmeric. He also browns the chicken first, making more of a saute.

Tracy Karachi of Hudson, who has been married to a Moroccan man for 18 years, has been perfecting her chicken tagine all that time. Her husband, Sami, is from Mohammedia, near Casablanca. In their home in Hudson, Karachi has worked out a recipe from watching her sisters-in-law. "I use a 7-quart Le Creuset oval pot," she tells me, "and brown the chicken first, but my sisters-in-law don't bother. They just dump everything into the pot at once. They use a lot of ginger and turmeric, and if they have it, they'll use saffron."

The secret ingredient in this family is a powder Karachi calls "yellow colorant," which she uses when someone brings it from Morocco. "The amount of yellow coloring they use is like a pencil eraser," she says, and the dish turns especially golden. Karachi, who works at Boston College, has tried making preserved lemon at home with "varying succcess," she says. For years, she put potatoes into her pot, but the family is staying away from carbohydrates, so now she adds green olives and peas, and sometimes frozen artichokes.

Two months ago, I ordered a Berber tagine from a website I won't bother to tell you about; the pan never arrived. Like Karachi, I used a Le Creuset pot instead. Chickens here are more watery than the gamey birds I ate in Morocco, so I made the dish I learned at Maison Arabe many times, each time with less and less water, until it was down to one cup. Onions, of course, add their liquid, as do tomatoes. Sturdier chicken legs, rather than breasts, worked best, though if you prefer breasts, use all white meat instead of a mix, so your timing is even.

Since it's not a staple in my cupboard, I left out the ghee, but preserved lemon is crucial to the flavor. The dish is now in my weekly repertoire. As all cooks know, after you make something enough times, you can do it without a recipe.

I toyed with the idea of asking a bakery to bake my bread dough, then imagined myself going over to pick it up while it was still warm. Eating the tagine would then become a truly authentic experience.

Alas, some things are lost in translation.

La Maison Arabe, 1 Derb Assehbe Bab Doukkala, Marrakesh Medina, Morocco, 212-24-38-70- 10, or www. lamaisonarabe.com. Cooking classes for two cost about $200, which includes lunch; the cost goes down if more students join the class.