Moroccan

Bitter oranges—Seville oranges—are commonly used in Morocco, but this salad is also good with sweet ones. Argan oil (see page 31) gives it a nutty flavor.

These minty carrots are tasty and aromatic. Serve them hot or warm as an appetizer or to accompany grilled or roast meat or chicken.

Use pears that are ripe but still firm (Comice is a good variety) and salad leaves such as curly endive, chicory, cress, arugula, and lamb’s lettuce (mâche). You can stick to one type only or use a mix.

I love this popular Moroccan salad. It is best made several hours in advance so that the flavors have time to penetrate.

I’ve baked these spicy chicken breasts for crowds, and always receive lots of compliments. The original recipe was for grill-cooking, but this version works year-round.

This is my version of harira, the national soup of Morocco, which shows up in unending variations from city to city, street stall to street stall, and family to family. It can be vegan, vegetarian, or made with meat—usually lamb. Some cooks add chickpeas, chicken gizzards, or broken-up bits of angel hair pasta. But the result is always unmistakably harira, and that's what makes it so comforting and satisfying. Harira has the inexplicable quality of being both light and filling at the same time, making you feel perfectly content. That's why, besides being the national soup, it's also a religious institution: it's what every family in Morocco eats to break their daily fast all through the monthlong observance of Ramadan. All over the country, for an entire month of sunsets, the first thing the entire population tastes is harira, and breaking the fast with anything else would be like serving Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. During Ramadan here in the States, I fast all day, even though I keep up my normal schedule, shopping in the farmers' market and working in the kitchen. As soon as the sun goes down, I step away from my expediting station and have a quick bowlful of harira to get me through the evening. And on days off, I take home a quart of it to break the fast at my house. The first time you make this, try making a light meal of it, with just some bread and maybe a simple salad. You'll understand what I'm talking about. It's weirdly, wonderfully satisfying—in a way that fills your soul more than your stomach. I make harira with water, not stock, because I think this vegetarian (actually, vegan) version is lighter and cleaner tasting, but you can make it with chicken or lamb stock or half stock and half water. While its flavor is very true to the original, I've played with its preparation. For example, I cook the lentils separately, to keep them from breaking down too much. (My mom called that crazy, but she smiled when she tasted the result.) And if you cook them in the soup, they darken the cooking liquid and give the soup a muddy appearance. The yeast-and-flour mixture is my version of the traditional starter made from fermented flour and water, used exclusively for harira, that you'll find in every Moroccan kitchen. It's easier to manage but has the same effect as that sourdough original, thickening and lightening the soup, and keeping it from separating, while adding a rich, tangy flavor. I wanted to give people a little crunch without adding an extra element, so I took the celery out of its usual place in the sautéed soup base and reintroduced it at the end as a raw garnish. In Morocco, harira is classically served with dates, which add sweetness to balance the soup's acidity. Taste it without the dates, and then try it with them. You'll find it's an entirely different experience. When I first started serving this soup at the restaurant, I'd accompany it with a few beautiful (and expensive) California Medjools on the side. The dates kept coming back uneaten. People just didn't get the idea of savory soup and sweet dates, which drove me nuts. So I thought of a way to work the dates into the soup, rolling them into little balls and adding them as a garnish. People get it now. The date balls are never left uneaten. They're a part of the bigger idea, as they should be. This makes a big batch. That's how I always do it, even at home, because we love to eat it over several nights, and it keeps for up to a week.

In Morocco every meal is a special occasion, and almond-paste sweets are always part of the menu. M'hanncha (snake) is made from rolled phyllo pastry coiled to look like a serpent. The orange-flower water and cinnamon flavorings are very North African, revealing the Persian influences in the region.

MOROCCAN COOKS USUALLY MAKE this tasty salad with Swiss chard, but I have seen it also with beet leaves. Eaten all year round, it is prepared by Moroccans on Rosh Hashanah for their Sephardic Seder, when they say a series of blessings over squash, leeks, dates, pomegranates, black-eyed peas, apples, the head of a fish or a lamb, and Swiss chard and beet greens.

I call this herb and spice rub North African because, besides the classic oregano and rosemary, it contains Tunisian and Moroccan spices such as caraway, cumin, and turmeric. In addition, it is spiked with harissa, the ubiquitous hot pepper paste that is to Arab North Africa what chile oil is to Asia. Use the same spice mixture to rub poultry, beef, or pork two to three hours before grilling and leave at room temperature. Or you can mix 3 tablespoons of this rub with 3 tablespoons yogurt and baste chicken breasts or legs or skewered lamb and pork before grilling. Better yet, leave in the spicy yogurt marinade in the refrigerator overnight.

An easy marinade of garlic, lemon, thyme, and a dollop of the North African hot sauce harissa make these green olives memorable. If you can, prepare the olives ahead—they improve with age.

Lightly garlicky and herbed, Moroccan-inspired carrots are versatile enough to accompany almost any meal.

Common ingredients create a Moroccan meal.

In Morocco, toasted cumin is served right beside salt and pepper as a standard seasoning at every meal. Judging by the way it amplifies the taste of the roasted eggplant in this dish, the Moroccans have got the right idea.

Preserved lemons are perhaps most at home in Moroccan dishes, but we love their complex, bright flavor and aroma in all kinds of soups, stews, and salads. We've adapted Mediterranean-food authority Paula Wolfert's quick method and made it even faster by blanching the lemons first. If you manage to find Meyer lemons, this is a great way to capture their unforgettable taste and perfume.

This well-balanced stew is intense yet mellow. The prunes soak up the fragrant spices, and long, slow cooking turns the lamb fork-tender.

These savory pies are filled with fish instead of the traditional squab.

The strong aromatics in this dish infuse the potatoes with a spirited Moroccan style.

Moroccan hospitality, always gracious, begins with mezes, the enticing little dishes set out to welcome guests before the meal. Cumin and mint are a classic combination, and they work particularly well with roasted beets — the cumin underlines their earthiness, and the mint freshens their undeniable sweetness.

You can barely take a step in the markets of Marrakech without tripping over fresh mint, or at least without being offered a glass of hot, sweet mint tea.

Ruggiero was served rose-scented candied peanuts and mint tea on the rooftop of the home of a Toubkal local. It turned out to be one of the best-tasting snacks she'd ever had.

Dried fruits and nuts are common in Moroccan pastries, but this tart is something special — the richness of the dough and the pop of the sesame seeds bring out that honeyed quality you normally associate with fresh figs. The cardamom cream is whisper-light, and the fresh orange segments are refreshingly cool.

Though you can certainly buy preserved lemons, we prefer the rich, clean taste of homemade. This technique, adapted from Paula Wolfert's, brings a multidimensional freshness and a wonderfully distinct pungency to the lemons, which are as much a revelation in salads, soups, or even cocktails as they are alongside the grilled fish. There's no need to rinse them first, but do discard the pulp — only the rind is eaten with the grilled sardines.

At the thought of Morocco, the mind tends to wander to the teeming heart of Marrakech; but the windswept coastal city of Essaouira, with its whitewashed buildings and heaping displays of glimmering fish (which you can have grilled on the spot), offers another sort of paradise. We can't supply Essaouira's particular perfume of sea and smoke, but the simplicity and clean flavors of this lemon-infused dish will take you there in spirit.