A Yearly Cooking Class at La Maison Arabe--with a Recipe!

A Yearly Cooking Class at La Maison Arabe--with a Recipe!

by Victoria Challancin

I'm back!  I'll spare you the apologies, the whinging, the explanations, but I do hope I have returned to the world of blogging after a lengthy absence.  Happily so!

Many of my readers know that I lead small groups to Morocco each year.  Some of you might ask exactly "why?"  I posted a simple explanation, yet in my eyes, a perfect explanation, in a sort of photo essay in 2010 and I don't think I can improve on the sentiments I expressed there.

Why Visit Morocco--please check it out and see if helps you understand my love of this culture, country, and its wonderful people.


Although my tours are not culinary tours, as a part of our itinerary on the trips I lead, we take a cooking class at the spectacular luxury riad (really, this is a boutique hotel) La Maison Arabe, which offers its cooking workshops in private gardens just fifteen minutes outside of Marrakech.  Complete with an organic kitchen garden, an outdoor wood-fired bread oven, and a thoroughly modern cooking school which has 16 individual work stations--each equipped with a closed-circuit screen, the hotel has created a perfect cooking school.  And yes, I admit to being just a tad envious... From the comfort of his or her own station, the participants can watch the dada, or traditional Moroccan family cook, who might be descended from Sub-Saharan slaves or who at least holds a place of respect as the family cook, as she leads us at a brisk pace through our cooking journey.

The Physical Space

Terra cotta tajines used to prepare individual portions and an array of the most common spices used in Moroccan cooking

Two adjacent cooking stations with plastic-covered chicken ready to be prepared

Older Posts on Moroccan Cooking

Cooking at the Kasbah:  A Cooking Class at La Maison Arabe (the original cooking school)

Olives, Preserved Lemons, and a Moroccan Tagine--plus a terrific recipe for a Chicken Tagine with Green Olives

On a Moroccan Table--general info about Moroccan food

The Food and Our Menu

Here we participate in the making of a bread called tanourt, or tannour, baked in an oven also called a tannour (probably from  the Hindi "tandoor").  After we prepare it, we are shown how to make traditional Moroccan mint tea.  And of course, we blissfully eat the warm bread with olive oil, argan oil, and amlou, a delicious Moroccan dip made from toasted almonds, argan oil, and honey.  Unfortunately, most of my photos of this were mysteriously deleted (along with 1500 others) from my camera when I tried to put them on my desktop Mac.  Argh...

I always proudly write my name on the name tag in my child-like Arabic, which always elicits a smile from the locals--and not a small amount of surprise

Our main dish, individually prepared:  Tagine M'darble 

Our main dish with two side salads:  Tatouka and Zalouk

This particular dish is rich, with an unctuous sauce sizzling with gentle spices plus the depth of the caramelized onions.  And it is really, really simple to prepare.  One of the things that fascinates me about much of Moroccan cooking that you often don't sauté the chicken or meats at all; rather they are braised in a simple water-based sauce redolent with simple spices.  This technique couldn't be easier!

Recipe:  Tagine M'darble

(Recipe from La Maison Arabe's cookbook, Moroccan Cooking:   Our Dadas' Recipes)

For the chicken:

500g/1lb chicken pieces (boneless breasts or legs/thighs with bones)

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 small bouquet garni of parsley and cilantro

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Water

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

A pinch of saffron threads

For the Caramelized Tomatoes:

2 kg (4.5 lbs) tomatoes

1 lb/500g white sugar

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

A pinch of salt

Garnish:  Toasted sesame seeds

To prepare the chicken:  

Drizzle the olive and vegetable oil in a tagine, casserole, or large heavy pot.  Add the chicken, the spices for the chicken, and 1/4 cup of water.  Mix well

Add the finely chopped onion to the pot.  Cover the pot and cook the chicken on low heat for 15 minutes.  Turn the chicken over from time to time and add a bit of water if necessary.

Add 1/2 cup cold water and the bouquet garni of parsley and cilantro.   Cover, increase the heat to medium high, and bring to a boil.  Cook, covered, for 30 minutes or until the chicken is very tender.  Check from time to time and add water if the dish seems too dry.  There should always be a cup of sauce in the pan.

Once the chicken is done, uncover the pot, and continue cooking for a few minutes, until the sauce slightly thickens.

Note:  before serving, remove and discard the bouquet garni of parsley and cilantro

To prepare the tomatoes:

Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds.  Grate the tomatoes on a box grater  and discard the skin.  Place the tomatoes in a large saucepan.  On low heat, cook the tomatoes, covered, for 15 minutes.  

Add the vegetable oil, sugar, cinnamon, and salt to the tomatoes.  Mix well.

Cook uncovered on low heat until the tomatoes become caramelized and thick, 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Stir from time to time.

To serve:  Place the chicken on a dish (or leave it in a tagine, if using), top with some of the sauce from the chicken, Add a dollop of the caramelized tomatoes, and finish by sprinkling with toasted sesame seeds.

Variation:  

Replace the tomatoes with pumpkin.  Wrap the pumpkin pieces with plastic wrap and microwave them for 15 minutes or until they become soft.  Caramelize the pumpkin following the same directions as for the tomatoes.

The wine tasting is optional, but I ask you:  Would I miss that???? Moroccan wines are phenomenal.  

Although we students didn't actually prepare this dessert of millefeulle with pastry cream, orange blossom water, almonds, and a phyllo-type dough, we happily enjoyed it.  The recipe calls it "Milk Pastilla"

Note:  As I come kicking and screaming into the world of social media, I am happy to say that many of my photos from this trip can be seen on Instagram (vchallancin) or my new Flavors of the Sun Facebook page...a work in progress as I learn the ropes!

My Tours to Morocco:

Come join me for my 16-day tour of Morocco in October or next April!  (The next tour will be my twelfth to lead there!)

Parting Shot:  

A sideways photo of favorite tagines in the souk, too heavy to bring home

Victoria Challancin

Flavors of the Sun Cooking School and Tours

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

©Victoria Challancin.  All Rights Reserved.

Giverny, Water Lilies, and the Easiest Pie Recipe in the World

In the last decades of his life, Claude Monet, often called the Father of Impressionism, extensively painted the lily ponds, the focal point of his extensive gardens at his home in Giverny, just north-west of Paris.  Water Lilies.  He painted them at all times of the day, at all times of the year, and in all sorts of weather.  He painted them endlessly, amassing over 250 interpretations of this beloved private world he created, a world of swirling colors, hidden forms, contrasts of light and dark, abstract, concrete--a world of his own.  Unique then.  Unique now.

At first, Monet painted the lily ponds as a whole, constrained as they were by the surrounding trees and the Japanese footbridge, yet bound by a fixed horizon that grounded the scene in the accepted, traditional way.  As he explored his private space over time, he became less and less concerned with this conventional pictorial space and began to paint spatially ambiguous canvases that had no boundaries but existed merely to depict the floating plants midst the reflection of trees and sky.  As his focus became tighter and tighter, Monet produced immense, but unified compositions, that revealed a complex water world, where concrete solid objects became fragmented forms shifting in the transitory light, blurring reality as we know it to produce that singular moment of perfection that seems unbroken in its sweeping scope, containing all of nature and life in a single glimpse.  Floating lily pads, mirrored reflections, sky, water, all become one, united by the broken brushwork of the Master.

"One instant, one aspect of nature contains it all," Monet once said, referring to these masterpieces produced toward the end of his long life.  As one who seeks everywhere that interconnected unity of all life, I was touched far beyond words as I drifted, almost dreamlike, through the gardens at Giverny last April, and feasted my eyes and all my senses on the magical lily ponds, which surely are as perfect today as they were when Monet had them constructed.

Some of you readers may remember my post called "I am Monet," where I enthused over the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, letting its mystery and beauty wash over me in all sorts of light, in all sorts of weather.  That same Monet-inspired magic was obviously even more evocative at Giverny, Monet's home, where he was the architect of extensive gardens that were the inspiration for all of the Water Lily series...those ephemeral Nymphéas, Monet's timeless gift to the world.

In April of this year, just before leading my tour to Morocco, I was lucky enough to share Giverny with the wonderful women who joined me on a separate trip to Paris.  Here are a few photos of that magic world.

The Lily Ponds at Giverny

April 2014

And now... for the pie... perhaps unlovely, but oh so delicious, and oh so easy to make.  In fact, this keeper recipe is the easiest dessert I have ever baked!

Cook's Notes:  I made this pie in class a couple of weeks ago, then I made it again and yet again. Delicious and easy to prepare, this recipe is a keeper.  I just used regular flour, but the original recipe called for gluten-free.  Simply plop the ingredients into a blender, give it a whirl, and then pour it into a buttered pie pan.  Bake for an hour...and magic!

Recipe:  Crustless Coconut Custard Pie

(Recipe from spryliving.com)

4 eggs

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup gluten-free all purpose (or other) flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a 10-inch pie pan or baking dish.

Combine eggs, butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, milk, vanilla, salt, and coconut in a blender. Blend until smooth.  Pour into pan.  Bake 1 hour.  Let cool before serving.

©Victoria Challancin.  All Rights Reserved.

Flavors of the Sun Cooking School and Trips

San Miguel de Allende,

México