Morocco Cuisine: Traditional Food and Popular Dishes
Cuisine in Morocco
The cuisine in Morocco is a delightful amalgam of flavors, textures and aroma. From the top dishes to the best drinks, eat your way through Morocco with our travel tips.
The cuisine in Morocco cuisine is considered by many experts to be among the finest in the world. It is synonymous with the use of the tagine and is characterized by its fragrant and colorful plethora of spices, including coriander, cinnamon, cumin, saffron, dried ginger and paprika.
Common dishes include the versatile couscous, a type of steamed semolina. In Morocco it is tradition to mix this with raisins or nuts, and a little pinch of spice. It usually accompanies roasted chicken with lemon and olives, and harira, a thick tomato-based soup with chickpeas and meat, traditionally served during Ramadan.
You must try the fantastic flavorful stews called tagines that are found everywhere; although each cook has his or her own secret recipe, the basic ingredients are meat or fish, vegetables and/or almonds, apricots or prunes. The word ‘tagine’ is also attributed to the cone-shaped terracotta pot that is used in making such succulent stews. The air circulation in a tagine cone helps cook the ingredients while evenly retaining the moisture.
If you’d like a tasty meal and a spectacle, you should try the mechoui. This is a whole goat or lamb, seasoned with cumin powder and slow-roasted until the meat is tender and the skin crisp, usually accompanied with a fresh salad. Pastilla is a very popular sweet and savory Moroccan pie and consists of a rich combination of layers of meat and filo pastry, coated with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It’s delicious at any time of the day.
For those with a sweet tooth, you’re in luck. Try the popular pastry khab el ghzal (“gazelle’s horns”), a pastry stuffed with almond paste scented with orange flower essence. It’s extraordinary! Most desserts do not revolve around heavy doses of chocolate and more often than not contain plenty of sugar, honey, almonds, sesame seeds, and filo dough instead. Crème caramel or ‘flan’ is served in most restaurants.
Fruit is often eaten after a meal, along with a glass of mint tea (spearmint and sugar). There is a very prevalent tea culture in Morocco and sugar is the name of the game, so be sure to let your server know if you’d rather have your sugar on the side. And how best to drink this delicious beverage? Hold your glass by the base and the rim with the finger and thumb and wrap a tissue around the teapot handle – they can be very hot.
Sample some delicious traditional cuisine in Morocco
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