Recipes: Moorish Moroccan Food

As part of the African special this month, I have another couple of recipes from Morocco for you. I made these two delicious dishes last night and they turned out a treat.

I served the dishes with rice but you could also serve them with couscous or bulgar wheat.

The bean dish is cheap, healthy and straight forward to make, just remember to soak the beans the night before cooking.

The Beef Briouates are also a cheap option but are a little more complicated to produce – however they are really tasty and well worth the effort.

Moroccan Haricot Beans

Serves four

Ingredients:

• 500g dry white haricot or Cannellini beans, soaked overnight and drained
• 3 ripe tomatoes, grated
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 ½ teaspoons ginger
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ¼ cup olive oil

Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a pot. Add 2 liters of water, and bring to a simmer.
2. Cover, and simmer the beans over medium heat about 1 1/2 hours, or until the beans are tender and the sauce is thick and no longer watery. If the liquids reduce too much during cooking, add a little water to prevent the beans from burning.

Beef Briouates

Ingredients:

• 175g filo pastry
• 40g butter, melted
• Sunflower oil for frying
• Fresh flat leaf parsley

For the meat filling

• 30ml sunflower oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 small bunch coriander
• 1 small bunch parsley
• 375g lean beef mince
• ½ tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• Pinch of ginger
• 2 eggs, beaten

Instructions:

1. First make the filling. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and chopped herbs over a low heat for about 4 minutes or until the onion is softened.
2. Add the meat to the pan and fry for about 5 minutes until the meat is browned and most of the moisture has evaporated. Drain away any excess fat and stir in the spices.
3. Cook the spiced meat and onion for 1 minute and remove the pan from the heat and stir in the beaten eggs. Stir until they are lightly scrambled. Set aside.
4. Take a sheet of filo pastry and cut into 31/2 inch strips. Brush the strips with the melted butter and then place a heaped teaspoon of the meat filling about 1 cm from one end. Fold the corner over to make a triangle shape.
5. Fold the triangle over itself and then continue to fold, keeping the triangle shape until you reach the end of the strip. Repeat until meat filling has been used up (about 24 pastries).
6. Heat about 1cm of oil in a pan and fry the briouates in batches for 2-3 minutes. Drain on kitchen paper before serving.