How To Cook Well In Morocco with Rory O'Connell - Season 1 Episode 5 -TBD
#CinemaJourney
#CinemaJourney
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00May your table always be full.
00:04Kerrygold. Proud sponsor of How to Cook Well in Morocco.
00:30Marrakesh is often called the Red City because of the colour of the earth used in construction, but it's also a very green city.
00:51The wide, tree-lined avenues and fountains are made possible by the plentiful supply of water from the mountains nearby.
00:58Like other cities in Morocco, Marrakesh is divided into two parts.
01:03The Medina, which literally means Old City, and the Ville Nouvelle, the French term for the new town.
01:10Morocco gained independence from France in 1956, but French is widely spoken, and the influence of the French occupiers is plain to see.
01:20Bonjour Monsieur. Bonjour Madame. Merci.
01:23Do you want to take a little dinner? What do you want?
01:26Yes, I want to take a little dinner continental.
01:29Continental. What do you want to drink?
01:32Café au lait. Merci.
01:34Merci beaucoup.
01:35Merci Madame.
01:36I could have been, I suppose, on a boulevard in Paris making that order, but I'm not. I'm street-side in Marrakesh at the Grand Café de la Poste, which was built in 1917.
01:49The first building to be built during the French protectorate in what was called La Nouvelle Ville, or the new town.
01:56And the building served as a post office, a café, a brasserie, a general area of gathering, and it's really quite magical.
02:06And then you go into the building itself, which was closed for about 20 years, and it was reopened then, I think I'm correct in saying it, 2005, after having a beautiful makeover.
02:17It's this wonderful rubbing of shoulders, of cultures, that you get in Morocco and Marrakesh.
02:23But here, undoubtedly, a strong French vibe. I mean, the breakfast I ordered at Croissant.
02:29And you see this all over this part of town. It's really wonderful. And for a traveller, it's a joy.
02:36Different from what happens inside the medina and the souk, but part of the evolution of this extraordinary city.
02:44Bonjour, good morning. How lovely, thank you. That's really wonderful. Thank you so much.
02:50Could I have picked a nicer spot to have my breakfast and to write my postcards?
02:56I couldn't really be happier here, enjoying every moment of what must have been an astonishing sight,
03:02coming up out of the desert in the new part of the town back in the day.
03:06This place is full of history.
03:12Leaving the new town, I'm entering the old city through one of the many impressive gates on my way to Lotel Marrakesh.
03:20The heavy wooden door opens into a beautiful courtyard, part of a 19th century Riyadh,
03:26which was itself once the central part of a much older palace.
03:32The Riyadh has been converted into a small hotel by the designer Jasper Conran,
03:36and I think it's very beautiful. It is filled with Moroccan craftsmanship, antique furniture, textiles, and art from Jasper's collection.
03:45I feel very privileged to be on this beautiful terrace in the middle of Marrakesh with Bouchara,
03:55who's a wonderful cook and cooks all the delicious food in this wonderful hotel.
03:59And we are going to make Bastilla this morning, or Bastilla, correctly speaking, you'll pronounce the L's, with pigeon.
04:06So, we're going to start by marinating the pigeons. We've got lovely little local pigeons here.
04:11And Bouchara has made the point strongly that all of the ingredients we are using are local.
04:15So, she's popping in some ginger, and some pepper, and some turmeric into this beautiful bowl,
04:21which came from Fez, by the way. And then this is the Ras Al Hanout, a nice pinch of salt,
04:26and then olive oil, local, of course, and then some water. And then beautiful saffron water.
04:32Saffron from the Urika Valley, I suspect, which has been soaked in a little bit of water,
04:37giving it that lovely saffron colour. So, she's just massaging that nicely into the pigeons.
04:44So, that's looking lovely. Now, normally you'd marinate those for two hours,
04:48but today we're going to go straight ahead with them. So, she's got a pot on the heat here.
04:52Lots and lots of olive oil this time. Lovely sizzle. We love the sizzle.
04:56And some fairly finely chopped onions. And then this is a little bit of parsley and coriander going in.
05:05Now, adding in some cinnamon bark. Now our pigeons are going in. Lovely.
05:12Now, lots of sliced onions. Loads and loads of sliced onions going in. And red onions.
05:18And now, some of the liver, and the gizzard, and the heart of some of the pigeons.
05:24So, the depth of flavour that will give. That's where the authenticity comes from.
05:28And now some snen. They add lovely, a matured, a clarified butter.
05:33And a good stir. Now, lots of water. So, we're sort of stewing, really, I think, because the liquid is coming up quite high.
05:41Lid on. Wonderful. And that goes to cook until the pigeons are cooked through.
05:47So, Boucher has cooked the pigeons for between an hour and a half to two hours until the meat is sort of very tender and almost falls off the bone.
05:56And then she's picking it off in sort of, like, sort of choice-sized pieces. Both the breast and the leg meat. The whole thing goes in.
06:04So, now, here we have some roasted and pounded almonds. And then she's got some, interestingly, granulated sugar.
06:14And in this pot here are the onions that were left over at the bottom of the pot. And also the liver and the heart and the gizzard we saw are in there as well.
06:25Now, cinnamon. More cinnamon. Such an important spice. OK, a little bit of nutmeg. So, nutmeg grated, just freshly grated.
06:34Now, this is just melted butter rather than the smen that we used earlier on. A little bit of water.
06:41Fleur d'orange. Ah, orange blossom water. There you go. How fabulous. So, again, perfume and balance. You can imagine how important the balance is now.
06:51Fascinating ingredient coming up. This is mastic, or gum mastic, as it's sometimes referred to. It comes in these little sort of grains like that.
06:59And she's adding some granulated sugar, grinding that to a fine powder, like salt. Lovely, yeah.
07:07So, we have our fillings ready. And now we're about to start to work with the waka. So, these little thin layers of waka, which are sometimes referred to as being onion skin thin.
07:18This super refined pastry for sweet or savory situations. And that's how you do it.
07:25Now, it looks like we are ready to assemble. So, she's got a great sort of overhang there out the sides.
07:34Now, okay, concentrate, Rory. So, that's some of our almondy mixture, which also she put some eggs into.
07:41Now, our oniony mixture with the little bits of liver and heart and gizzard. Now, our choice morsels of pigeon.
07:53And more of our almond and egg mixture. Now, okay, some roasted almonds, which have been roasted, I'd say, in a little bit of olive oil.
08:00More of the larger sheets, which she's just draped over the top. And she's folding it in around the bottom to just enclose and to seal everything in.
08:08Well, we have a little, what looks, beaten egg. She's dribbling on.
08:12Boucher was saying she's going to prick little holes in it, just using a cocktail stick, quite simply.
08:17You'd use a skewer, I suppose. And this is to allow the steam to escape.
08:21And that is now ready for the oven, where, apparently, it will go into the oven for about an hour until its beautiful golden colour.
08:29And then we'll be able to do the final decoration and, most importantly, taste it.
08:38Now, the cooked pastilla has arrived and it looks beautiful.
08:41And now, we're going to put some final little decorations.
08:46So, icing sugar and some cinnamon.
08:50And now, the almonds. And this is to indicate that there are almonds inside.
08:54And she's put a little pinch of dried rose petals on top to make something which is just so beautiful.
09:00Boucher, thank you so much. I'm so looking forward.
09:04Do I get to taste a little?
09:06Yes, yes.
09:15It's like heaven. Absolutely delicious.
09:18Now, I truly know what this great dish of the Moroccan kitchen is supposed to taste like.
09:23And it's completely fantastic. Thank you so much.
09:41Morocco is full of gardens, nowhere more so than Marrakesh.
09:44Some of those gardens behind the high walls of the Riyads, which are not discovered until you go through the door.
09:50And there you are in a little green oasis.
09:53I'm at the Anima Gardens on the south side of Marrakesh.
09:56And getting here, we've passed lots of garden centres on the way.
10:00This fabulous garden was the creation of André Heller, who first visited Morocco in 1972.
10:07And immediately was entranced by the people, the culture, the place and the atmosphere.
10:13Then somewhat later in 2010, to mark his 60th birthday, he found this eight hectare site and begun the creation of this really extraordinary place, which is full of mystery discoveries around every corner.
10:30There are cacti, there are bamboo gardens, there's a rose garden, there are wonderful sculptures, some of them abstract, some of them figurative, some of them immediately understandable.
10:42But the real joy of this garden is, it was the vision and the generosity of one man, a response to the generosity of the experience he had had as a guest and a visitor to this extraordinary country.
10:56I found my way to the rose garden to begin my tour of Anima Gardens.
11:07And under this beautiful, what I'm going to call Moroccan red pergola, is a beautiful fountain with little sort of burbling, bubbling water fountain coming up.
11:17Every morning they fill this fountain with blossoms from the garden.
11:21There's bougainvillea, rose petals, as you might expect, in a rose garden, and plumbago.
11:26Under my feet are these beautiful tiles from Fez, as they're called, black and white.
11:32And the whole, the atmosphere, the feeling, the level of colour is really, really beautiful.
11:37All of this I can recognise.
11:39What I'm about to discover, though, around every corner, because this is mainly a garden of mystery.
11:45What I'm about to see and discover, well, who knows, it's very exciting.
11:51I've walked into this lovely bamboo grove with great big fat bamboos towering up to the sky and shading some of the sunlight, making a lovely sort of dappled effect.
12:11And there's this plinth here with, of all things, some Picasso plates on it. Extraordinary to come across them.
12:17From my point of view, certainly, I can relate to the fish and the hands here.
12:22This place is full of the most bizarre, wonderful things.
12:25Keith Heron, the artist, said that art should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination, and encourages one to go further, and sort of like a voyage of exploration.
12:49Apparently, this reflects the journey from life to death, and the cruciform shape being at the base of the piece, and also at the very sort of pinnacle up there.
12:58And I think when Mr. Heller decided to create this really wonderful place here, his imagination was definitely provoked, and he definitely went with his instinct to create what is a veritable garden of treasures almost in Eden.
13:13Thank you very much.
13:14Thank you very much.
13:43Sometimes another cup of mint tea just isn't going to cut it.
13:52You might need a little bit of extra buzz for Marrakesh, because there's so much going on, and there's so much to see.
13:58And so much of what you see as traditional, in terms of the riyads, the souk, the medina, the mosques, the minarets, et cetera, et cetera.
14:06But also, there's a huge movement full of contemporary possibilities.
14:12And here in this lovely, very minimalist little cafe, where this is a very good coffee, they've taken traditional Moroccan finishes, craft styles, to style and craft something that is unbelievably easy on the eye, totally calming.
14:29Modernity, a contemporary feel, a place where the young come in.
14:35I've discovered that if you want to order a flat white in a cafe in Morocco, you simply come in and just order a flat.
14:41So I come in as a flat sous-vue play. I felt really down with the locals.
14:45I'm sitting here in a beautiful garden, just outside the centre of Marrakesh, surrounded by a wonderful Moroccan feast.
15:05I'm at Alphasia Agdel, which is a sister restaurant of Alphasia Guilez, which is in the centre of town, which was started off that restaurant about 30 years ago.
15:17The original concept was that all of the food would be prepared by women, and all of the service would be by women.
15:24And this was a unique concept at the time, and it's now a concept and a practice that you find all over Morocco when you travel.
15:32And I got into the kitchen a little bit earlier to see some of this being prepared.
15:36And the generosity I have received here is similar to the generosity I've received all over this country.
15:41And the food at Alphasia is some of the best I've ever tasted in Morocco.
15:52The kitchen and dining room are overseen by a truly remarkable woman called Fatihah Baba,
15:57for whom the term a force of nature could have been invented.
16:01So a chicken tagine with caramelised onions, so the chicken is being cooked very, very gently again until the meat is falling off the bone.
16:11And madame, qu'est-ce qu'il est dans la sauce?
16:14Ça c'est la sauce avec les oignons.
16:16Yes.
16:17Les oignons, oranges.
16:18Onions and oranges, yeah.
16:19Oranges, un peu de sucre, cannelle.
16:21Sugar, cinnamon.
16:22La gomme arabique.
16:23Le quoi?
16:24La gomme arabique.
16:25What?
16:26La gomme arabique.
16:27So gomme arabique, that's got that mysterious little piney flavour.
16:31Et les épices, gingembre, poivre.
16:33Ginger, pepper, spices.
16:35Oui, saffron, saffron naturel, c'est pas artificiel.
16:37Saffron naturel.
16:38Madame is insisting it's of course proper, good, natural saffron.
16:43Nothing artificial here.
16:45And now a little garnish of some orange.
16:48Oh, ils sont...
16:49Ça les tranches d'orange dans le four.
16:51OK.
16:52So the oranges are being roasted, I think, in a little bit of sugar.
16:54So they, too, are slightly caramelised.
16:56And a little...
16:57Les zestes de l'orange.
16:58And a little zest of orange.
16:59Yeah, fantastic.
17:00Because we don't often think about putting orange with chicken at home, really.
17:04But you can imagine this sort of sauce which is full of flavour and the spices sort of...
17:10And again, this business of balancing the sweetness and the sourness.
17:14Fantastic.
17:15Merci, madame.
17:16Ça c'est très belle.
17:17Really, really.
17:18So lovely.
17:19Beautiful.
17:20Cuisineur, mais j'adore la cuisine.
17:22Ha, ha, ha, ha.
17:23She's saying she's not a cook because she loves cooking.
17:25I'd say she's able to do anything this one, to be very honest.
17:28Ha, ha, ha, ha.
17:29Definitely my new best friend.
17:38So we're now having couscous.
17:40So this fabulous, fluffy couscous.
17:42I mean, honest to God, if I could do that...
17:44Ça c'est le couscous.
17:45C'est très légère, madame.
17:47Oui.
17:48Oui, c'est très, très légère.
17:49Ça c'est le beurre rince.
17:51Le beurre rince.
17:52Le beurre, oh oui.
17:53Le beurre rince.
17:54OK, so that's some semaine again.
17:55Semaine, semaine.
17:56The slightly rancid, or shall we call mature butter maybe, is a nicer word.
18:01And just making a little depression.
18:06Oh, what a clever idea.
18:07In the top of the couscous, I presume the vegetables, of course, will go in there.
18:11Lovely.
18:12And madame, qu'est-ce que c'est le bouillon dans le casserole?
18:15C'est le bouillon des légumes.
18:16Le bouillon, yes.
18:17The bouillon, yes.
18:18So it's vegetable cooking water, yes.
18:19Visite, oui.
18:20And qu'est-ce que ça c'est quoi?
18:21Ça c'est le navet.
18:22Navet, so some turnip.
18:24Oui, le navet.
18:25And, yeah, lovely.
18:27So with just the vegetables, normally you'd have you put your chicken or your lamb in there,
18:31is under, in there.
18:32But because this is a vegetable one, and some carrots, and some large courgettes.
18:37Courgettes vertes, yeah.
18:39This is like a squash or a pumpkin, exactly, yes.
18:42Which in this part of the world right now are just coming in season.
18:45Now, on top, qu'est-ce que ce passe maintenant, madame?
18:49Qu'est-ce que c'est quoi?
18:50Ça c'est qu'on appelle les choux.
18:52Oh, le choux.
18:53So cabbage.
18:54So cabbage has gone on top.
18:56C'est la même couleur que le tricolore irlandais.
18:59Oui.
19:00C'est vrai.
19:01L'orange, le vert et l'autre.
19:02Alors vive Londres.
19:03Vive, vive Irlanda, absolutely.
19:05Ça c'est pois chiche.
19:06Oh yeah, so some chickpeas.
19:07Pois chiche et raisins.
19:08Yeah, and chickpeas and raisins.
19:10Oh, absolutely lovely.
19:11Oui, je veux que le pois chiche belle.
19:13So the final little touch is going on here.
19:16So the hot harissa has arrived.
19:19Harissa, bouillon.
19:20Bouillon, bouillon de vegetables.
19:21Bouillon de vegetables.
19:22Delicious.
19:23Raisins caramelisés, les oignons.
19:25Onions caramelised with some raisins.
19:27Ça c'est sûr.
19:28Exactly.
19:29Little bit of sugar in there as well.
19:30Apart from the natural sugar and the onions.
19:32So the balance and the complexity, the sweet, the hot, the relatively neutral and then the
19:37juice to go with it.
19:38Wonderful.
19:39Madame.
19:40Bon appétit.
19:41Merci beaucoup.
19:42Ça c'est absolument fantastique.
19:43Merci beaucoup.
19:44Ça c'est absolument fantastique.
19:45Merci будто
19:47il faut
19:48montrer
19:52C'est correct.
19:53C'est an d'un d'un d'un públic.
19:54C'est bon.
19:55C'est zéker, c'est un diuèolin, c'est drôle
20:08It doesn't really get much better.
20:20Morocco is famous for its oranges.
20:22You see them everywhere.
20:23And the expression, Moroccan oranges, just generally speaking,
20:26stands for quality and something that's going to be sweet and delicious.
20:30And I'm making a Moroccan orange cake,
20:33sometimes referred to as a boiled orange cake,
20:36because you start off here by boiling either an orange
20:40or, in my case, a couple of beautiful tangerines.
20:43You boil them until they're completely soft and squishy.
20:47In Morocco, they'd probably use a pressure cooker to do this,
20:50but I just put them into a saucepan, cover them with water and boil them away.
20:54But what is important is that the oranges or the tangerines that you use
20:58are boiled until they are completely mushy like this,
21:02and you just pull them apart with the greatest ease.
21:05What you're watching out for is any little pips.
21:09And, as good fortune would have it, these appear to be pretty much pipless.
21:14So a little quick whizz like that, or a quick chop with your chopping knife.
21:22And render them to a slightly coarse puree.
21:28So it's looking something like that, like a sort of an orange puree.
21:33That's the most difficult part of the recipe, if that's possible to imagine.
21:37In here I've got some beaten eggs, to which I'm going to add the rest of my ingredients.
21:41Some castor sugar.
21:43Just going in like that.
21:46And then I've got some lovely ground almonds.
21:48And I've got a little baking powder.
21:50So I like to just mix my baking powder, which I sieved, just to be on the safe side, in there like that.
21:56So to all intents and purposes, this is a flourless cake.
21:59So if you want to make this gluten-free, just use gluten-free baking powder.
22:03And it's a dream.
22:04An absolute dream.
22:05That goes in there.
22:07And then our orange mixture.
22:09Like that.
22:14Then all I need to do is mix those together.
22:18And it's like a sort of a thick batter.
22:21Then into our prepared tin.
22:23Like that.
22:24Little levelling off, but honestly it's not even necessary to do that.
22:28Because, you know, of the consistency of the actual cake.
22:32Into our preheated oven.
22:33And this cooks for about an hour.
22:39So this is our little cake.
22:43Which we've cooked.
22:44And that we've just allowed to cool on a cooling rack.
22:47Popping it onto my serving dish.
22:49Like that.
22:50And then I'm going to give it a little decorative treatment.
22:53An old-fashioned paper doily.
22:55And I'm going to dust the top like this.
22:59With a little bit of icing sugar.
23:01I mean, this is completely optional, by the way.
23:04Okay, then carefully lift that off.
23:07There we go.
23:09You can't really breathe very much when you do that.
23:12What's wonderful with orange.
23:14And what you see all over the place as well.
23:16Everywhere.
23:17In Morocco.
23:18Is pomegranates.
23:20So you can do pomegranate seeds.
23:22But I'm actually just going to cut the top.
23:24Off my pomegranate here.
23:26And then.
23:27I'm just cutting down along the side like that.
23:30To get little sections.
23:32Okay, so you see I just cut through and then.
23:35Just break it.
23:37A very, very pleasing sound, I have to tell you.
23:40And then.
23:41Break into little jewelled sections.
23:44Which we're going to place around the cake.
23:48And this is almost like being back in Marrakesh.
23:52With these colours.
23:53Like that.
23:55Find a little bit of mint.
23:58Like that.
24:00The pomegranate.
24:02The mint.
24:03The oranges in the cake.
24:04Or in my case, the clementines.
24:05Tangerines.
24:06Tangerines.
24:07A real expression.
24:09Of Marrakesh.
24:10But not just Marrakesh.
24:11Of what has grown.
24:13And grows so beautifully.
24:14In the entire country of Morocco.
24:16This reminds me of that magical place.
24:36May your table always be full.
24:57Kerrygold.
24:58Proud sponsor of How to Cook Well in Morocco.