Lord Bottletop's Fez

Nabila's Moroccan Kitchen . Wednesday, October 26th, 2016 Spicy Shrimp & Vegetable Bisque Nabila made this bisque during this yea r's sacred music festival, and seems to have kept the recipe under wraps until the landladies, twin sisters Anne & Tessa, made their annual pilgrimage from Versailles and Cape Town.   It was zesty in ways I hadn't often tasted in other Moroccan dishes, maybe because the turmeric and ginger were unmitigated by earthier spices, like cumin and paprika, which are absent from this recipe.  American palates, once bland but now well-seasoned by Mexican, Thai, and Szechuan food, and blasted by habanero and scotch bonnett peppers, have become jaded. In their chest-thumping, competitive quest for the stratospheric reaches of the Scoville Scale--a fool's errand, as the acidic peppers dominate other flavors--Americans overlook the subtleties of mid-range seasonings, all staples of Moroccan cooking.  I asked Nabila to make i...

I had a 20-year career in telecommunications engineering in my thirties and forties, at times working alongside an Italian-American guy from New York. Bob had deeply set eyes and a hangdog look, at odds with his pleasant manner. On Fridays, he'd show up at the office with a homemade pizza that he called his "garbage pie”—baked dough, sauce, cheese, and whatever leftovers were in his fridge. Pizza is a dish of humble origins, so when it became known that Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of unified Italy, loved pizza and often asked her kitchen staff to prepare it, the dish was elevated to an honored position, and the Pizza Margherita, in the colors of the Italian flag, was named for her. On a personal level, some things   about this dish are inviolable.   I’ll never let barbecued chicken or sliced pineapple  near it. Or broccolli or cannned tuna. That being said, it’s probably the most bastardized, personalized dish in the world, but I keep it simple.  I once...

Nabila’s Moroccan Kitchen . Monday, December 15th, 2014 Moroccan Beef and Kanaria I asked Nabila how people used those giant celery-like bunches of Cardoon, which Moroccans call either Kanaria or Kherchouf (gesundheit), and she told me to get some beef (I used beef shoulder), then simply cooked everything under pressure, creating a quick and delicious stew. Our new pressure cooker: 1999 dh (~ 200 Euros) from Carrefour, but it's a 10-liter Cadillac Ingredients: 1 kg. beef (shoulder or some other good stew cut) 1 kg. Kanaria, stripped, cut, and bagged In a bowl, add the following:: 1.5 to 2 onions, sliced sliced potatoes (optional--although a Moroccan would be mortified by such an addition) 6 cloves garlic 1 tea glass of olive oil Place the beef and the sliced vegetables in a pressure cooker, and add t he following spices: 1 tsp turmeric 1 tsp ginger 1 tsp black pepper salt to taste Add about 1 teaglass (sm) of olive...

Bastilla (بَسطيلة) Moroccan sweet and savory chicken pie Do you want something that's as satisfying to the eye at as it delicious to taste? Try this bastilla. I've asked Nabila to make it at least half a dozen times, but never found the time to write down the recipe. Lissa & Natasha are a mother and daughter who stayed at Dar Al Hajj for a week and a half during the beginning of Ramadan, and we agreed to have the bastilla for ftour, the breaking of the fast. This year (2014) the month of Ramadan began only a week after the summer solstice, so ftour, the breaking of the fast, did not begin until around 8 P.M. Lissa and Natasha were not fasting, but I was, at least at the time. So, thanks, ladies, for agreeing to delay your meal, and thanks for writing down the recipe, and thanks as always to Nabila for doing what you do so brilliantly. Bastilla, with its dusting of powdered sugar and cinnamon over a filo-encrusted chicken pie filled with a savory egg roux and crushe...

Nabila’s Moroccan Kitchen . Tuesday, April 2, 2013 Lentils: Quotidian Moroccan food When you want something that will take you through the next 5 days of classes, lentils are the way to go, and I’m throwing in some long hot green peppers for added spiciness. The Arabic name for lentils is ‘Adas, but when texting or chatting online, the word appears as something like 3adas. I’m not sure how this system of transcription evolved—wikipedia says it’s an ad hoc development necessitated by the limited options of cell phone keypads, numerals being presumably easier to type than an apostrophe—but I like it, and most of my Moroccan friends and students enjoy when I use it on Facebook or in a text message—to them, seeing a non-Moroccan doing this is like watching a dog playing the piano. There are a number of distinguishing consonants in the Arabic alphabet which are velarized or pharyngealized versions of the same unemphasized consonants that are represented in Eng...

Nabila’s Moroccan Kitchen . Tuesday, February 24, 2015 Harira: Moroccan comfort food Harira is basically a spicy Moroccan tomato soup with a lot of other things. It's often the first course of a Ramadan ftour (breakfast), after a few dates and juice or milk. For a full pot of Harira, we used a whole kilo of tomatoes. Ingredients : 1  large onion, whole   1 kg tomatoes                          1  sm bunch   celery leaves, chopped     1 sm bunch  parsley, chopped               1 large cup chick peas                       1 tbsp          olive oil                   ...