My friend Meegs sent me a lovely Moroccan cookbook
for Christmas. It's one of those coffee table cookery
books that is lovely to look at, heavy to hold, and
tempting to cook from.
So, of course, for my birthday dinner this year, we made
a Moroccan flavored dinner for 20.
This is the chicken tagine with prunes made with
thighs and drumsticks and flavored with tumeric,
ginger, cumin, and onions.
This is a lamb tagine with preserved lemon and olives.
It had a lovely warmth provided by white pepper, and
the preserved lemon added great depth. Lightly
steamed baby spinach was folded in right before
serving. Both of the tagines were delicious and went
together easily, although with all of the strong flavors,
I'd substitute beef for the lamb next time.
For sides, we had this quinoa with lemon salad (not
Moroccan, but delicious and from the January Bon
Appetit.) There was also bread, a great green salad,
sliced oranges, a roast beet salad, cous cous, and
wild rice. The best side, however, was a squash dish
with cinammon from the Food of Morocco. My Mom
altered the recipe by roasting the butternut squash
instead of steaming it. So good.
And then there was dessert. I made a sour cherry tart
with sour cherries I'd frozen this summer. My Mom
made a gooey molasses cake, as well as a lemon
meringue tart. Everything was so good.
There are still a bunch of recipes from the Food of
Morocco I want to try. I didn't have time to get into
any of the bread recipes, but so many of them looked
tempting. Obviously I need to have more dinners...