Wolfert

Southern Moroccan tagines are rarely glazed inside or out but have a lot of mica inthe clay which makes them very strong and heavy. Similar to the American southwest. The Riffian one is light in weight; the local clay isn't as strong. I use mine alot so don't worry about it. This particular tagine is from Tangier and the outside of the cone is glazed, not the inside. The bottom part is glazed inside but not on the bottom. The etching is typically Berber. I haven't seen one like this in a long time. I've had this particular tagine for more than 40 years. The decorated tagines are for show or for serving only. Be careful about lead in the glaze.

http://www.paulawolfert.com/recipes/mor_tagine.html There is a lamb tagine with picholine olives and lemon juice posted on my site. Green picholines are the olives of choice in Morocco for tagines with lemon. When I wrote my book (1973), all I could find to act as stand-ins were Greek Naplion or Grabers. Both are good olives but never made the dish sing. I suggest you go for the high note.

No, wood is incredibly rare and expensive. A brazier such as in the photo below holds coals and the tagine is set on top. The reason there are so many steamed foods in Moroccan cooking is cost effective: the double decker effect of cooking. For example, couscous steamed in an upper chamber with the stew bubbling below.

Start with the middle one and make adjustments as you get used to cooking in a tagine. Use a heat diffuser to be safe. When you get your riffian tagine, soak it as suggested. Then to give it a little "age," here is a trick I learned in Morocco: take some olive oil and fireplace ash from wood (not some ash from weird heating logs that are made of chemicals) and rub the top and bottom of the tagine inside and out. Bake both parts in a 250 0ven for for 10 hours. Cool, and repeat until it looks like the photo below. You don't really need to do this,b ut it really looks great! by the way,the knob on top is so cold that you won't need an oven mitt to lift it when cooking.

Moderator's Note: This thread began as an offshoot in the eGCI braising class Q&A. Member Smithy asked: In Moroccan cooking, this method is described as 'starting the tagine cold' The lamb is not browned at the beginning of the braise. Instead, lamb is gently heated along with the spices and other ingredients, allowing the flavors to fully penetrate. Remember you are cooking in a shallow tagine which can't take high heat from the start . I suppose this is one reason this method came about. At the end of the braising period when the meat is succulent and the sauce is thick and rich and plentiful, it is usually browned by covering the bottom half of the tagine with a flat ceramic plate, then piling hot coals on top. A gorgeous glaze appears. There are two ways to substitute: one is to broil at the end and the other is to place the tagine on the highest shelf of a hot oven and let the meat brown. Don't worry aobut putting a tagine into a hot oven. It is now hot enough to take the heat without cracking. (Hot earthenware cracks when put onto something cold.) by the way, you should never cook earthenware tagines with the conical top in the oven .The purpose of the conical top is to remain cold while the bottom maintains a nice coddling heat as the tagine slowly simmers to perfection.. Those braising Berbers were so smart!!!

I thought the summary was terrific. Thank you so much. I would like to add a few points that somehow got lost along the way and I think could be helpful to those who like to braise in earthenware and want browned meat to start it off. I use a shallow heavy bottomed (berndes) pan to brown meat in batches before adding them to a braising pan. (This allows me to use my earthenware daube which coddles the meat in a braise to perfection.) I heat the empty skillet until really hot, then add the fat or oil, and that sizzles, I immediately add just seasoned cubes of meat. I work in batches and the browning goes very fast. I never have trouble cleaning this particular skillet. IN fact, I can deglaze it and add those browning juices to the daubiere as well. This method keeps in all the meat juices. If you brown meat cubes in a hot oven, you risk drying out the meat no matter how hot the oven. The only time I broil meat cubes before braising would be when I am using oxtails for a braise. Their odd shape screams out to be broiled rather than skillet browned. Also, I noticed the overnight separation of meat and juices was dropped from the summary. I think that methoc really makes a difference in the texture and flavor. Another comment I would like to add. In some Mediterranean countries, the meat to be braised is browned at the end of the cooking. For example check out recipes for most Moroccan lamb tagines.

I started to clean my files today, came up with a letter from Patissier Antoine written in 1985. It should be of interest to those who follow the history of the recipe for caneles or canneles The most important line is the first in the 'process' the sugar, flour and butter are mixed together before the addition of the eggs and the milk . This is what makes the custardy interior

I was using a Spanish iron ring specially made for cooking paella in-or outdoors. Our fireplace is in the kitchen and I used an 18-inch rim-to-rim paella pan.

try clarifiying different brands of butter. You'll be amazed by the amount of water some of them contain. I remember teaching a sauce that used butter at the end to thicken it. I could never get the same name brand to work when I taught it in the midwest when it worked perfectly fine with the same brand on the west and east coast. The reason I was told is the dairy councils in some of the the midwest states are very strong and can dictate just how much water butter can hold.

The only time I would use pimenton de la Vera in place of nora or pimenton to flavor a paella would be when making the Alicante arroz negret which employs a lot of squid ink. The sofrito one makes for this dish is rich and dark chocolate colored without burning. The flavor balance went out of whack when I started cooking it in the fireplace using one of those iron 'stools' sold at the Spanish table, and burning oak. Yes, I got a nice smoky aroma, but I couldn't help but want more of the delicious smoky flavor that I remembered when I first tasted it in Alicante born Norberto Jorge's restaurant in Madrid, casa besigna. So, I started to add a little of the pimenton de la Vera and it worked like a charm. Or maybe I need to use a different wood. I can imagine how smoky pimenton could ruin a more subtle paella.

I have kept my homemade harissa and the Southern Tunisian version, harous, in glass jars n the refrigerator for up to a year. I always keep the paste covered in olive oil. From time to time, I top it off with more oil in the following way in order toavoid ending up with more oil than harissa. I place the jar in a saucepan of simmering water (or you could do this in a microwave for an instant) in order to get all the contents to condense at the bottom of the jar. Let the jars and paste cool down, cover with fresh oil and a lid, and return to the refrigerator.

And at what temperature do you serve the soup? I prefer it lukewarm to hot. Maybe even a little on the cooler side.

This method of cooking produces moist, tender chicken. It trades off crisp skin, which is lost, for an incredibly intense flavor. I was taught in the French southwest to use all coarse or rock salt mixed with some egg whites to form a “cooking jacket. ” No flour was used. It’s this combination of coarse grains of salt (gros sel), and the egg whites that keep the moisture in the chicken, but also miraculously absorb excess fat from the chicken.

I was way off on my timeline. Thanks for nailing it.

Andi, AFter tiles, etc. I have finally floors I can stand on for hours without my feet hurting!! The oak wood floors I now have have been coated with a kind of thin varnish which makes cleaning up a breeze. Let me repeat: The big news is my feet never hurt while cooking!

Please somebody help me out here: I always thought the tall hat went back to Hellenic times.

When I was working in SW France Andre Daguin told me he was strongly against freezing raw foie gras that had not been treated to special cleaning and commercial vacuum packing. “Simply throwing it into the freezer will make it taste like soap, feel like soap, and the only thing it won’t do is foam up like soap!” So if you freeze foie gras, freeze it in its original packing. It freezes very quickly, just like butter, and will keep for several months.

I agree that true harissa from Tunisia and sambal oelek are totallly different as 'Touragand decribed above.. On the other hand, if you visit any Moroccan market where olives are sold you will see the a red pepper sauce drooling down from the top of a pyramid of black crinkly olives. This red drool is a dead ringer for sambal oelek and it even tastes like it. The texture, too, is the same with lots of seeds.. Hot red pepper sauces were never part of old refined Moroccan cooking. The use of hot pepper on couscous came with the tourists in the 70's. They asked for it in restaurants when the sweet and salty couscous would arrive at table. Since they had had their first couscous in Paris and loved it with the mix of hot and sweet, they were disappointed . Restauranteurs were only to happy to oblige. By the way, in traditional Moroccan cooking, the combination of hot and sweet is not as strong as is thought. In Morocco, the blend of salty and sweet is more revered..

I purchased the frozen duck confit wings at whole foods and used them to flavor a garbure; they worked out perfectly. Just be sure to purchase confit that is covered in pure white fat. I recently purchased on line some frozen duck leg confit . It arrived covered in a pinkish-hued fat which tasted like it had been rolled in crushed tomatoes and rosemary. I threw it out. I can't believe industry has already begun to dumb down confit!

Malden has been a personal favorite for years, sort of like an old boyfriend I never thought I would drop. Recently, I purchased some of the Slow Food winning salt from Portugal via egulleteer Jim Dixon and found it incredible.. I'm not thinking this infatuation is a 'fling.' it could last a long time.

I don't know about fermented navy beans, but I have made bread and bread rusks with a leavening made with soaked chickpeas left to ferment until bubbling. The rusks are very popular in tomato salads in Cyprus, Greece and South-eastern Turkey. If you are still curious, check out the recipe for Chickpea-Leavened Bread and Rusk Salad http://www.paulawolfert.com/recipes/chickpeas.html

you did everything right. And I think your assumptions are correct. The only thing I would do differently is to avoid paper hanging out the sides of the pot. Frankly, I braise on top of the stove more often than not. I learned so many dishes from women in the Mediterranean who cook that way that I've come to believe it develops a deeper and richer dish. I call it "bottom up" braising .

Susan\snowangel, I received your pm. Please explain what you mean by dry parchment. I always crumble parchment paper under running water then place it directly on top of the food. This works best for me because it helps allow the braise to breathe. Also, I like to think it simulates the old clay daubiere\tagine\cazuela type pot which was the pot of choice years ago when a cook wanted to braise. I'll get back to you after lunch.

quote from touragand: I think that semolina complements and "intensifies" the flavor and aroma of butter. I suppose simple grains and starches do that in general, such as potatoes, rice and bread. But durum wheat pasta and couscous seem to heighten the aroma of butter the most. Zeitoun: I was responding to the above query by touraregsand ..I think it is the other way around that milk products enhance the flavor of semolina. (Hungarians claim that the best spaetzle is made when it is cooked in milk!) I have many ways to cook couscous but when I made it with milk for the first time I did the following: For 1 1/2 pounds semolina couscous, I steamed the dampened couscous for about 25 to 30 minutes over boiling water I then dumped it into a roomy pan and GRADUALLY sprinkled on about 2 cups cold milk. Then with a long fork or a wide long whisk, I broke up any lumps. I sprinkled on about 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and left the grains to rest while raking them from time to time .anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes. I didn't but I could have steamed them again, then used cold water to douse the couscous and left the grains to settle down while raking from time to time. About 45 minutes before serving, I steamed the couscous again but this time for 30 minutes. Then used about 2 cups broth and 1/4 cup butter to moisten the couscous. After tossing lightly with a whisk or long pronged fork, I covered the couscous and let it rest about 10 minutes before serving with the sauce and vegetables. Note: when I roll my own couscous, I steam it three times.

I have noticed that as well. I would like to plagiarize from one of my own cookbooks and share a story with you. It concerns substituting milk for cold water in order to enhance the flavor of semolina couscous. "Back in the late seventies, the great American food writer James Beard asked to visit me in my home in New York to interview me for an article he was writing about Moroccan couscous. At that time I'd published only two books. Excited about Mr. Beard's impending visit, I wanted very much to present him with a new and exciting couscous dish that wasn't in either of my books. I called an old friend, the Moroccan ambassdor Abselam Jaidi, who suggested I speak to his wife. She told me that on a recent trip back to Morocco she and Abselam had eaten one of the most delicious couscous dishes of their lives. She had no idea how it was made, but promised to try and find out. Days passed. No word came from Mrs. Jaidi, perhaps she'd forgotten or had been unable to unearth the secret. Since it was late spring, I decided to make a slightly new version of the Berber couscous in my book, and went off to buy the ingredients. The night before Beard's visit, Mrs. Jaidi called. She had the secret.! Milk! All I had to do, she said, was toss the couscous with milk instead of water after thefirst steaming, and the couscous flavor would come alive. I knew Berbers sometimes added milk to their cosucous sauce, but was worried that wetting the couscous down with milk would causee it to lose its fluffiness. So I decided to make my Berber couscous in two batches, the first the traditional way, the second utilizing the "secret." I couldn't get over the difference, and neither could Mr. Beard. We agreed that the additon of milk really made the couscous "sing." I've made my spring couscous this way ever since." ---Mediterranean Grains and Greens, 1998. Sinc