A taste of Morocco anyone?

Christophe Noel

Expedition Leader
I was in culinary school in France at the time I took a 4 week mountain bike trip around N. Africa. I later modified a recipe for a dutch oven that reminded me of the tagine meals I had near the Atlas mountains. I just found the recipe yesterday. She's a good. Chicken or lamb. Tweaked for camping.

Pre-trip prep:
Mix together the following seasonings - cinnamon, turmeric, cumin seeds, corriander seeds, red chili flakes, ground ginger, black pepper (all in roughly 1/2 tablespoon measurements. Easy on the tumeric as it stains. Easy on the ginger. Heavy on the chili flakes.) Place in a warm skillet and allow to "bloom" for 60 seconds. Grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder.

Prepare 8-10 chicken thighs or 3 lamb shanks. Rub the meat with a healthy dose of the spice mixture. It all needs to be extremely well coated. Make more rub if needed. Place in a zip lock bag and regrigerate for up to 48 hours.

Day of trip:
In a hot dutch oven or pan, place the meat in a shallow dose of olive oil. Brown slightly. Add one whole onion chopped in large chunks. Let the onion get slightly translucent. Add 8 oz of chicken stock and deglaze the pan a touch. Add 1 can of stewed tomatoes. If you have fresh okra that goes very well in this dish.

Cover and let simmer for 35-45 minutes. Lamb shanks will take longer.

Serve on cous cous. Or...If you're camp lazy like me, cook the whole mess with an extra 8 oz of chicken stock and just before you remove the whole deal from the heat, toss the cous cous in and let it cook in the stewy broth for a couple minutes.

If you really go Moroccan, you can let it cool and eat with one hand right out of the pot. Dishes? Who needs dishes?

Bon appetit! I hope it takes you to Ourzazate or some other far away place like it always does for me.

Christophe
 
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Scott Brady

Founder
The apricot glazed camel was my favorite... Mmmmm, good.

Oh, and the real mint tea in a Berber camp is tough to beat too. :camping:
 

RHINO

Expedition Leader
absolutey love middle east and north african cooking, alot of it is too spicey for my wife so i tend to make two smaller recipes or tone it down some and spice mine up afterwords.
on the topic my all time favorite food (or ingredient i suppose) is curry. i say food cause i like all the curry dishes not just one in particular.
 

Christophe Noel

Expedition Leader
expeditionswest said:
The apricot glazed camel was my favorite... Mmmmm, good.

Oh, and the real mint tea in a Berber camp is tough to beat too. :camping:
Then there was the day I got suckered into eating the rotten, stinky camel meat with eggs. Actually, I don't even know if it was camel meat. Could have been anything after a few days of rotting. Horrid. Worse than the lamb eyeballs I had in Dakar.

The tea is awesome, I agree.
 

calamaridog

Expedition Leader
Sounds awesome. I even have some lamb in the freezer!

Cous cous is the bomb:hehe: So quick, so good.

Do they use okra in N. Africa?
 

greybrick

Adventurer
Reminds me of a work camp attached to where I was stationed in central Egypt once complete with separate kitchen facilites for expats and Arabs. Lol, by suggestion from some local friends I ate in the Arab dining hall because the expats got fed dubious pork every second night or some really tough old beef and who knows what all else. Thanks Arab friends for keeping me safe for those months.

Curried kid when done right is great. :)

.
 
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jatibb

Adventurer
yeah, a little spice makes it campin. one of my faves is chicken yasa. african dish, can be made ahead and cooked at camp. throw all ingredients in a bag and freeze, marinates while thawing.throw the rice in a few minutes before serving. sweet and spicy. perfect dutch oven dish.originally a monkey dish but im having problems finding that here (haha).probably good with goat though. look for it on epicurious.com, many recipes that can be easily modified for camping. another fave is snapper veracruz..
 

xcmountain80

Expedition Leader
This is always a camp favorite for me, and I got the reciped here. I don't add the fruit do add carrots finely chopped and cut the meat into chunks, though unless they like it hot don't cut into chunks until after it is cooked.

Aaron
 

Momrocks

Adventurer
Camel? Is the taste similar to cow or horsemeat?

I have never had horse meat but I liken Camel meat to be similar to retired dairy beef. It was semi tough and somewhat stringy like old (not to be confused with aged) beef. Mine wasn't glazed but open cooked and strongly spiced and served over Cous Cous. I have certainly had better meat. I guess Camels aren't raised for slaughter so what did I expect right? I only had it for the experience of it. Now that I have experienced it, I see no reason to seek it out again. If I ever, and I hope I do, get back to the Atlas mountains or Merrakech there are many other dishes on the menu I will have before Camel.
 

off.track

Adventurer
mmm kafta:

img4189x.jpg
 

off.track

Adventurer
^^^ sure

kafta:

Ingredients:
1lb hamburger
1/2 lb pork sausage
1 sauted onion
pinch of P&S
1t turmeric
1/2t cumin seed powder
1T or 2 chopped cilantro or parsley
some bread crumbs to make it stiffer

Method
mix all the ingredients just like you would to make hamburgers. basically mince it.
then take about racket ball's worth into your hand and roll it out.. like a cigar.
thence push a skewer through it. (the flatter the skewer the better.. ME ones are about 1in wide)

then commence grilling.. 5 min on each side or so.. you kind of have to pay attention. (it may also be helpful to keep wetting the kabobs to keep them moist)

serve with your favorites. i made veggie kabobs seen in the pic below and steamed couscous. plain kefir or plain yogurt goes great with this.

img4185.jpg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabob

bon appetit :chowtime:
 

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