World Cuisine: Africa #2

Africa part 2!

In the last blog we covered western, southern and eastern African foods.
In this blog we go back north.

Northern Africa is heavily influenced by the middle-east, since it is in direct line with countries in Asia like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. People are often guilty (including myself) of 'forgetting' that northern African countries are actually a part of Africa and not Asia. 

First we took a look at Morocco.
Moroccan food is maybe what people most identify with when you bring up African cuisine.
It has distinct smokey spices and heat, and is laden with vegetables and meats that are grown on home soil.
The dish we chose to make was harira soup.
Harira is traditionally served during the holy month of Ramadan, but is also made various other times through the year. During Ramadan, Muslims practice fasting and refrain from eating from sunrise to sundown. At sun down a simple meal of harira and bread is eaten to sustain them to the next day.

Harira goes against all of my culinary gut instincts regarding 'too many spices in one dish'.
Because there are a lot.
Cumin seeds AND ground cumin. Several teaspoons each of ground coriander, cinnamon and turmeric. Tablespoons of harissa (roasted red pepper and red chili sauce/paste).
Fresh coriander stalks and leaves, leeks, AND seasoned stock - which is usually the main and only flavouring in most dishes we are accustomed to. Different recipes include different spices in different amounts. Some are quite hot and others mild.
Simmered with the spices are tomato, lentils, vegetables, and chicken (though you can use any kind of meat or no meat).

 

It's topped with plain yogurt, coriander/cilantro and lemon, and eaten with bread and hummus.

A small bowl of this goes a LONG way to filling you up. We ate it with rice instead of bread and I barely made it through my serving.

It's no wonder that this is such a nourishing staple of Moroccan diets.

Next we took a look at Egypt.
Egypt uses a multitude of middle-eastern spices, rice and legumes in their cuisine.
I stumbled upon an interesting looking dish called koshari (or kushari, or koshary) and, when researching further, found out that it's actually the national dish of Egypt (despite the main ingredients not being native to Egypt) - being served in some form in nearly every restaurant and on street corners.
Now koshari, at first glance, looks like something an American college student invented from the leftovers in their fridge - a mix of rice, lentils and macaroni with sauce on top.

 

 But it's so much more than that.
Each addition is cooked separately. Each has it's own spices. Each has it's own cooking time.
And in the end it combines in to something that it surprisingly flavourful and diverse.

One blog I read quoted a man who describes the making of this dish as a symphony. The scooping, pouring, stirring and tapping of each spoon on each pot fills a restaurant with "sound as if it was a rehearsal for a concert". I took this to be a thing I would never experience, since they use certain tools and storage containers there that I don't have here, however because of reading this I paid special attention to the sounds of what I was cooking.
And sure enough, when everything was cooking at the same time and different spoons were used to stir different pots and then 'tap tapped' on the side and lids were shuffled around - it was indeed a culinary symphony.

The macaroni is cooked with salt.
The rice is cooked with vegetable stock.
The lentils are cooked with garlic, cumin, and bay leaves.
And the crowning glory of this dish - the baharat sauce.
Baharat is an Arabic word simply meaning 'spice'. It's a very specific mix of middle-eastern spices that is hard to come by. I followed a recipe to make my own from the whole spices.

 

Cumin seeds, corriander seeds, whole cloves, peppercorns and cardamom pods are gently heated on the stove until they are toasted and fragrant, and then blended to a powder with cinnamon, paprika, and nutmeg. This spice blend is then added to a pan of onions, vinegar, and crushed tomatoes to make THE most amazing tomato sauce I've ever had. This sauce is meant to blend the flavours of the whole dish and can be quite hot with the addition of chilies, which we omitted.

Also from Egypt I wanted to try duqqa, which is described both as a spice blend and a dip.
It's toasted almonds, sesame seeds, cumin seeds, corriander seeds, and salt and pepper all ground up in to a powder.

 

This is then eaten with bread by dipping the bread in olive oil and then in the duqqa powder so it sticks. I found it a little dry in texture for something that is described as a 'dip' but I think mixing the duqqa with olive oil and making a spread, or sprinkling the powder on cooking chicken or fish would be excellent.

Lastly we tried our hand at fig rolls (basically fig newtons), which are a common dessert snack in Egypt. Trying to make the pastry gluten-free and non-crumbly was a bit of a task, but it ended up ok, albeit a little more tough and plump than I would have liked them. Will definitely try these again with a different dough.

I wish I could have somehow bottled the smell of my kitchen to share with you on here. The toasting of the nuts and seeds, the steaming of the seasoned pots on my stove... intoxicating. Making spice mixes from scratch is labour-intensive, but so rewarding when you get to stand there smelling and tasting all these fresh ingredients.

That was our whirlwind tour of Africa!
On to the next continent!

Happy Eating!!