How To Cook Well In Morocco with Rory O'Connell - Season 1 Episode 5 -TBD
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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, the 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. Bienvenue.
01:23Monsieur, do 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. And the building served as a post office, a café, a brasserie, a general area of gathering. And it's really quite magical. And 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.
02:16It's this wonderful rubbing of shoulders of cultures that you get in Morocco and Marrakesh. But here, undoubtedly, a strong French vibe. I mean, the breakfast I ordered at Croissant. And you see this all over this part of town. It's really wonderful. And for a traveller, it's a joy, different from what happens inside the Medina and the souk, but part of the evolution of this extraordinary city.
02:43Good morning, sir. Bonjour, good morning. Oh, how lovely. Thank you. That's really wonderful. Thank you so much. Could I have picked a nicer spot to have my breakfast and to write my postcards? I couldn't really be happier here, enjoying every moment of what must have been an astonishing sight coming up out of the desert in the new part of the town back in the day. This place is full of history.
03:07Leaving the new town, I'm entering the old city, through one of the many impressive gates, on my way to Lothal Marrakesh.
03:18The heavy wooden door opens into a beautiful courtyard, part of a 19th century Riyadh, which 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, and I think it's very beautiful. It is filled with Moroccan craftsmanship, antique furniture, textiles, and art from Jasper's collection.
03:48I feel very privileged to be on this beautiful terrace in the middle of Marrakesh with Bhushara, who'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 Bhushara 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, which came from Fez, by the way.
04:23And then this is the Ras Al Hanout, nice pinch of salt, and then olive oil, local, of course.
04:29And then some water, and then beautiful saffron water.
04:33Saffron from the Urika Valley, I suspect, which has been soaked in a little bit of water, giving it that lovely saffron colour.
04:40So she's just massaging that nicely into the pigeons.
04:45So that's looking lovely. Now, normally you'd marinate those for two hours, but today we're going to go straight ahead with them.
04:50So she's got a pot on the heat here. Lots and lots of olive oil this time.
04:54Lovely sizzle. We love the sizzle. And some fairly finely chopped onions.
05:01And then this is a little bit of parsley and coriander going in.
05:06Now, 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.
05:17And red onions. And 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.
05:36So we're sort of stewing, really, I think, because the liquid is coming up quite high.
05:41Lid on.
05:42Wonderful. 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,
05:52until 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.
06:01Both the breast and the leg meat. The whole thing goes in.
06:03So now, here we have some roasted and pounded almonds.
06:10And 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.
06:19And 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.
06:28OK, a little bit of nutmeg.
06:31So nutmeg grated, just freshly grated.
06:33Now, this is just melted butter rather than the smen that we used earlier on.
06:39A little bit of water.
06:41Fleur d'orange.
06:42Ah, orange blossom water. There you go.
06:45How fabulous. So, again, perfume and balance.
06:49You can imagine how important the balance is now.
06:51Fascinating ingredient coming up.
06:52This is mastic, or gum mastic, as it's sometimes referred to.
06:56It comes in these little sort of grains like that.
06:59And she's adding some granulated sugar.
07:02Grinding that to a fine powder like salt.
07:04Lovely, yeah.
07:07So we have our fillings ready.
07:08And now we're about to start to work with the waka.
07:11So these little thin layers of waka,
07:14which are sometimes referred to as being onion skin thin.
07:18This super refined pastry for sweet or savoury situations.
07:23And that's how you do it.
07:25Now, it looks like we are ready to assemble.
07:29So she's got a great sort of overhang there,
07:32out the sides.
07:35Now, OK, concentrate, Rory.
07:38So that's some of our almondy mixture,
07:39which also she put some eggs into.
07:41Now, our oniony mixture
07:45with the little bits of liver and heart and gizzard.
07:50Now, our choice morsels of pigeon.
07:53And more of our almond and egg mixture.
07:55Now, OK, some roasted almonds,
07:58which 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.
08:03And she's folding it in around the bottom
08:06to just enclose and to seal everything in.
08:09We have a little, what looks, beaten egg.
08:11She's dribbling on.
08:12Boucher was saying she's going to prick little holes in it,
08:15just using a cocktail stick, quite simply.
08:17It used a skewer, I suppose.
08:19And this is to allow the steam to escape.
08:21And that is now ready for the oven,
08:24where apparently it will go into the oven for about an hour
08:26until it's a beautiful golden colour.
08:30And then we'll be able to do the final decoration
08:32and, most importantly, taste it.
08:37Now, 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.
08:51And this is to indicate that there are almonds inside.
08:54And she's put a little pinch of dried rose petals
08:56on top to make something which is just so beautiful.
09:00Boucher, thank you so much.
09:02I'm so looking forward.
09:04Do I get to taste a little?
09:05Oui, oui.
09:10Mmm.
09:14It's like heaven.
09:16Absolutely delicious.
09:18Now, I truly know what this great dish
09:20of the Moroccan kitchen is supposed to taste like.
09:23And it's completely fantastic.
09:25Thank you so much.
09:25It's a good reason for the birch.
09:41Marcos full of gardens, nowhere more so than Marrakech.
09:43Some of those gardens behind the high walls of the Riyads
09:46of the Riyads which are not discovered until you go through the door and there
09:50you are in a little green oasis. I'm at the Anima Gardens on the south side of
09:55Marrakech and getting here we've passed lots of garden centers on the way. This
10:00fabulous 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
10:12atmosphere. Then somewhat later in 2010 to mark his 60th birthday he found this
10:20eight hectare site and begun the creation of this really extraordinary
10:25place which is full of mystery, discoveries around every corner. There
10:30are cacti, there are bamboo gardens, there's a rose garden, there are wonderful
10:35sculptures, some of them abstract, some of them figurative, some of them
10:40immediately understandable. But the real joy of this garden is it was the
10:45vision and the generosity of one man, a response to the generosity of the
10:51experience he had had as a guest and a visitor to this extraordinary country.
11:03I found my way to the rose garden to begin my tour of Anima Gardens and under
11:08this beautiful what I'm going to call Moroccan red pergola is a beautiful
11:13fountain with little sort of burbling, bubbling water fountain coming up. Every
11:17morning they fill this fountain with blossoms from the garden. There's
11:21bougainvillea, rose petals as you might expect in a rose garden and plumbago. Under
11:26my feet are these beautiful tiles from Fez, as they're called, black and white and the
11:32whole, the atmosphere, the feeling, the level of colour is really, really beautiful. All of this I can
11:37recognise. What I'm about to discover, though, around every corner, because this is
11:42mainly a garden of mystery. What I'm about to see and discover, well, who knows? It's very exciting.
11:49I've walked into this lovely bamboo grove with great big fat bamboos towering up to the sky and shading
12:08some of the sunlight, making a lovely sort of dappled effect. And there's this plinth here with, of all things, some
12:14Picasso plates on it. Extraordinary to come across them. From my point of view,
12:19certainly I can relate to the fish and the hands here. This place is full of the most bizarre, wonderful things.
12:25Keith Aaron, 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.
12:32Apparently, 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.
12:43And 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.
12:58Kerrygold, proud sponsor of how to cook well in Morocco. Kerrygold.
13:27Kerrygold, proud sponsor of how to cook well in Morocco.
13:44Thanks so much. Thank you. Sometimes another cup of mint tea just isn't going to cut it. You might need a little bit of extra buzz for Marrakesh because there's so much going on and there's so much to do.
13:57And so much of what you see. And so much of what you see is traditional in terms of the Riyadhs, the Souq, the Medina, the mosques, the minarets, et cetera, et cetera.
14:06But also there's a huge movement full of contemporary possibilities.
14:11And here in this lovely, very minimalist little cafe where they saw a very good coffee, they've taken traditional Moroccan finishes, craft styles to style and craft something that is unbelievably easy on the eye.
14:27Totally calming. Modernity, contemporary feel, place where the young come in. I'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.
14:40So I come in and say, a flat, see we play. I felt really down with the locals.
14:45I'm sitting here in a beautiful garden just outside the center of Marrakesh, surrounded by a wonderful Moroccan feast.
15:04I'm at Alphasia Agdel, which is a sister restaurant of Alphasia Guillaise, which is in the center of town, which was started off that restaurant about 30 years ago.
15:15The original concept was that all of the food would be prepared by women and all of the service would be by women.
15:23And 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.
15:31And I got into the kitchen a little bit earlier to see some of this being prepared.
15:35And 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.
15:51The kitchen and dining room are overseen by a truly remarkable woman called Fatihah Baba, for whom the term a force of nature could have been invented.
16:03So a chicken tagine with caramelized onions. So the chicken is being cooked very, very gently again until the meat is falling off the bone.
16:10And Madame, qu'est-ce qu'il est dans la sauce?
16:13Ăa c'est la sauce avec les oignons.
16:15Yes.
16:16Les oignons, oranges.
16:17Onions and oranges, yeah.
16:18Oranges, un peu de sucre, cannelle.
16:19And sugar, cinnamon.
16:20La gomme arabique.
16:21Le quoi?
16:22La gomme arabique.
16:23La gomme arabique.
16:24So gum arabique, that's got that mysterious little piney flavor.
16:29Et les Ă©pices, gingembre, poivre.
16:32Ginger, pepper, spices.
16:33Saffron, saffron naturel, c'est pas artificiel.
16:36Saffron naturel.
16:37Madame is insisting it's of course proper, good, natural saffron.
16:41Nothing artificial here.
16:43And now a little garnish of some orange.
16:46Ăa les tranches d'orange dans le four.
16:50OK.
16:51So the oranges are being roasted, I think, in a little bit of sugar.
16:53So they, too, are slightly caramelized.
16:55Ăa les zestes de l'orange.
16:57And a little zest of orange, yeah.
16:59Fantastic.
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 sort of full of flavor.
17:08And the spices sort of, and again, this business of balancing the sweetness and the sourness.
17:13Fantastic.
17:14Merci, madame.
17:15Ăa c'est trĂšs belle.
17:16Really, really.
17:17So lovely.
17:18Beautiful.
17:19Je suis pas cuisinier, mais j'adore la cuisine.
17:21She's saying she's not a cook because she loves cooking.
17:24I'd say she's able to do anything this one, to be perfectly honest.
17:27Definitely my newest friend.
17:37So we're now having couscous.
17:39So this fabulous, fluffy couscous.
17:41I mean, honest to God, if I could do that.
17:43Ăa c'est le couscous.
17:44C'est trÚs légÚre, madame.
17:46Oui.
17:47Oui, c'est trÚs, trÚs légÚre.
17:49Ăa c'est le beurre rince.
17:50Le beurre, oh oui, OK.
17:52Le beurre rince.
17:53OK, so that's some semaine again.
17:54Semaine.
17:55Slightly rancid, or shall we call mature butter, maybe, is a nicer word.
18:00And just making a little depression.
18:05Oh, what a clever idea.
18:06In the top of the couscous, I presume the vegetables, of course, will go in there.
18:11Lovely.
18:12Madame, qu'est-ce que c'est le bouillon dans le casserole?
18:15C'est le bouillon des légumes.
18:16Le bouillon, yes.
18:17So it's vegetable cooking water, yes.
18:18Visite de wing, oui.
18:19And qu'est-ce que ça c'est quoi?
18:20Ăa c'est le navet.
18:21Navet, c'est-ce.
18:22Le navet.
18:23So some turnip.
18:24Oui, le navet.
18:25And, yeah, lovely.
18:26So with just the vegetables, normally you'd have you put your chicken or your lamb in there,
18:31in there.
18:32But because this is a vegetable one, and some carrots, and some large courgettes.
18:37Courgettes vertes.
18:38Yeah.
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 now, on top, qu'est-ce
18:47que c'est-ce que c'est-ce que c'est-ce que c'est-ce que c'est-ce que c'est-ce que c'est-ce qu'on
18:49So cabbage has gone on top.
18:55It's the same color as the three colors irlandais.
18:58Yes, it's true.
18:59Orange, green, and the other.
19:01So vive Londra.
19:02Vive Irlanda, absolutely.
19:04It's pois chiche.
19:05Oh yeah, so some chickpeas.
19:06Pois chiche and raisins.
19:07Yeah, and chickpeas and raisins.
19:09How absolutely lovely.
19:10So the final little touch is going on here.
19:15So the hot harissa has arrived.
19:18The bouillon, the vegetable, the vegetable juices.
19:21Delicious.
19:22Raisins caramelisées and onions.
19:24Onions caramelised with some raisins.
19:26Exactly.
19:27A little bit of sugar in there as well.
19:29Apart from the natural sugar and the onions.
19:31So the balance and the complexity, the sweet, the hot,
19:34the relatively neutral, and then the juice to go with it.
19:37Wonderful.
19:38Madame.
19:39Bon appétit.
19:40Fantastic.
19:41Merci beaucoup.
19:42Ăa, c'est absolument fantastic.
19:48That was really something.
19:54I mean, I love being in kitchens.
19:56That's what I do.
19:57I love cooking.
19:58But to get the opportunity to be in a kitchen like this,
20:01in a foreign land with such generosity of spirit,
20:04such kindness, so much laughter,
20:07doesn't really get much better.
20:19Morocco is famous for its oranges.
20:21You see them everywhere.
20:22And the expression, Moroccan oranges, just generally speaking,
20:25stands for quality and something that's going to be sweet and delicious.
20:29And I'm making a Moroccan orange cake,
20:32sometimes referred to as a boiled orange cake,
20:35because you start off here by boiling either an orange
20:39or, in my case, a couple of beautiful tangerines.
20:42You boil them until they're completely soft and squishy.
20:46And Morocco, they probably use a pressure cooker to do this,
20:49but I just put them into a saucepan, cover them with water and boil them away.
20:53But what is important is that the oranges or the tangerines that you use
20:57are boiled until they are completely mushy like this.
21:01And you just pull them apart with the greatest ease.
21:04What you're watching out for is any little pips.
21:07And as good fortune would have it, these appear to be pretty much pipless.
21:13So a little quick whizz like that, or a quick chop with your chopping knife.
21:25And render them to a slightly coarse puree.
21:28So it's looking something like that, like a sort of an orange puree.
21:32That's the most difficult part of the recipe, if that's possible to imagine.
21:36In here I've got some beaten eggs, to which I'm going to add the rest of my ingredients.
21:40Some castor sugar, just going in like that.
21:44And then I've got some lovely ground almonds.
21:47And I've got a little baking powder.
21:49So I like to just mix my baking powder, which I sieved, just to be on the safe side, in there like that.
21:55So to all intents and purposes, this is a flourless cake.
21:58So if you want to make this gluten-free, just use gluten-free baking powder.
22:02And it's a dream, an absolute dream.
22:05That goes in there.
22:06And then our orange mixture.
22:11Like that.
22:14Then all I need to do is mix those together.
22:17And it's like a sort of a thick batter.
22:20Then into our prepared tin, like that.
22:23A little levelling off, but honestly it's not even necessary to do that.
22:27Because, you know, of the consistency of the actual cake.
22:31Into our preheated oven.
22:33And this cooks for about an hour.
22:36So this is our little cake, which we've cooked, and that we've just allowed to cool on a cooling rack.
22:46I'm popping it onto my serving dish, like that.
22:49And then I'm going to give it a little decorative treatment.
22:52An old-fashioned paper doily.
22:54And I'm going to dust the top, like this, with a little bit of icing sugar.
22:59I mean, this is completely optional, by the way.
23:02OK, then carefully lift that off.
23:07There we go.
23:08You can't really breathe very much when you do that.
23:11What's wonderful with orange, and what you see all over the place as well, everywhere, in Morocco, is pomegranates.
23:19So you could do pomegranate seeds.
23:21But I'm actually just going to cut the top of my pomegranate here.
23:25And then I'm just cutting down along the side like that to get little sections.
23:32OK, so you see I just cut through and then just break it.
23:36A very, very pleasing sound, I have to tell you.
23:39And then break into little jewelled sections, which we're going to place around the cake.
23:47And this is almost like being back in Marrakesh with these colours.
23:54Like that.
23:56Find a little bit of mint.
23:59Like that.
24:01The pomegranate, the mint, the oranges in the cake, or in my case, the clementines, tangerines.
24:06A real expression of Marrakesh, but not just Marrakesh, of what has grown and grows so beautifully in the entire country of Morocco.
24:15This reminds me of that magical place.
24:18For a bunch of
24:28Before one alums
24:30Who is at your toes
24:33If you toured yourlar
24:34Do it
24:36If not
24:40Or
24:43Things
24:45You
24:48May your table always be full.
24:57Kerrygold, proud sponsor of How to Cook Well in Morocco.