Enjoying Moroccan food is a total body experience that competes with all five of your senses for supremacy.

A MEDLEY OF SPICES COATS YOUR nostrils. Sweet, sultry smoke clings to your skin. Fire crackles under terra cotta tajines filled with bubbling stews. Bright earthy colors and vibrant ingredients. All this before you even take your first bite.

Moroccan cuisine ranks highly on lists of the best food in the world and with good reason. It is known for its use of fragrant, colorful spices, rich vegetables, and generous portions of lamb, fowl, and fish. Moroccans play with heat to craft luxuriously flavorful dishes, often regarded as the country’s most alluring attraction.

It was that among many things that inspired restaurateur, cooking show host, and all-around super mom Kate Dychangco-Anzani to travel to Morocco. Unfortunately, much like many of our best laid plans over the last two years, COVID-19 threw a wrench in the works.

“I had a flight to Morocco on December 2 and Morocco shut down November 30.”

A tale as old as COVID itself. Not one to stew in misfortune, Kate decided to channel her wanderlust through food and organized a Moroccan-themed lunch.

“This lunch was actually supposed to be in honor of my friend’s birthday but the meal itself came out of a grieving process of ‘Okay, I guess I’m not going to Morocco. Morocco can come to me’”

One does not simply take on the challenge of cooking Moroccan food in Cebu on a whim. As Kate put it plainly: “This kind of cooking is not for someone who wants simple food. It’s dynamic flavors, full exotic spices, and time.”

THIS KIND OF COOKING is not for someone who wants simple food.  It’s full of dynamic flavours, exotic spic cooking is time consuming.

You might be able to get your hands on proteins easily enough, but key components like spices or, more critically, tajines, are harder to find and not easily replicated by commercial pots or appliances. Tajines are earthenware pots endemic to North Africa, used for stewing and slow cooking. They consist of a flat, shallow base and covered with a large conical dome. It is the tajine’s particular shape that allows heat and smoke to circulate inside the pot and evenly slow cook the dish within.

This did not seem to pose the slightest inconvenience for Kate.

“I’ve been doing this for so long, you know—food and entertaining. I mean I have a food show, right? So when you’ve been in this for as long as I have been, along the way you meet people who sell things like saffron and fresh herbs or someone dabbling in hydroponics. I could literally do a food directory!”

She’s not kidding. Kate’s involvement with the Cebu Food & Wine Festival played a pivotal role in reviving local businesses and introducing new players in the industry to a hungry market. As a dedicated restaurateur, she has been heavily immersed in the local food scene long enough to have built lasting relationships with farmers and importers alike. In fact, the so-called guest of honor was a fellow organizer of the Cebu Food & Wine Festival and a player in the hospitality industry as well.

It comes as no surprise that Kate has such envious access to ingredients. However, it does beg the question: what about the tajine?

“You would be surprised what people have been selling since the pandemic. I found this lady who was selling tajines from Manila. I have like seven or eight tajines. For this lunch alone I think I used six of them.”

Sounds excessive but to deliver an authentic Moroccan experience, not unheard of. And for a menu as ambitious as Kate’s— chicken with preserved lemon and olives, osso buco with prunes, braised short ribs in red curry, bread and duqqa, and couscous— totally necessary.

Every dish gets its own tajine. As with all forms of slow cooking, it is imperative to keep the lid of the tajine closed throughout the entire cooking process, meaning that the final outcome remains a mystery for hours. But if you ask Kate, tajine cooking is the way to go.

“People find cooking and entertaining for people like that to be quite daunting. For me, Moroccan food is the easiest, you just put everything in the tajine and wait. I have a 6 burner stove. I put a tajine on each one and left it for three hours. Everything just melts in your mouth.”

Just throw everything into the pot and let time do the work? Seems simple enough, right? Well don’t let this “Master of Slow Cooking” (self-proclaimed but uncontested) fool you. Cooking Moroccan food might sound easy but preparing to cook Moroccan food takes about 2 days.

“You have to soak the tajine in water at least a day ahead to keep it from losing moisture during cooking,” explains Kate, “and marinating is very important to flavor.”

MOROCCAN FOOD is a test of patience but the results are worth it.

“I tried doing the chicken in a Dutch oven and it’s just not the same. The flavors of the tajine pot are quite different because of the clay. Fire over time really changes food. The smoke cooks through everything from top to bottom. It’s just a whole new level of essence.”

If time had a taste, it is Moroccan food. North Africans have been using tajines for centuries and it’s no wonder that this mode of cooking remains a staple to the region for centuries, despite so many modern advancements to slow cooking technology. So much of the culture revolves around dedicating time and effort to create something magnificent for your loved ones. This isn’t a meal that you wolf down.

“Our lunch started at noon and ended at 5PM.”

Moroccan food is a labor of love and much like the culture it derives from, it’s meant to be savored and enjoyed with friends.

PRESERVED LEMON CHICKEN TAGINE WITH OLIVES

Ingredients:

• 1 to 2 preserved lemons, quartered and seeds removed
• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces, skin removed, back discardedor reserved for another use
• 2 large white or yellow onions, finely chopped
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small handful fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 small handful fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 teaspoons powdered ginger
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon turmeric (or 1⁄4 teaspoon Moroccan yellow colorant)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1⁄4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled, optional
• 1 teaspoon smen, optional
• 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 teaspoon ras el hanout, optional
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 handfuls pitted olives (green or red or mixed)
• 1⁄4 cup water, approximately, if using a tagine

COOKING IN A TAGINE

Instructions:

1. Add enough of the olive oil to the tagine to coat the bottom.
2. Arrange the marinated chicken in the tagine, flesh-side down, and distribute the onions all around
3. Add the olives and reserved rind of the preserved lemons, and drizzle the remaining olive oil over the chicken.
4. Add the water to the tagine, cover and place on a heat diffuser over medium-low heat. Give the tagine time to reach a simmer without peaking. If you don’t hear the tagine simmering within 20 minutes, slightly increase the heat, and then use the lowest heat setting required for maintaining a gentle–not rapid simmer.
5. Allow the chicken to cook undisturbed for 80 to 90 minutes, and then turn the chicken over so it’s flesh-side up. Cover the tagine again, and allow the chicken to finish cooking until tender.
6. Turn off the heat, and let the tagine cool for about 10 to 15minutes before serving. Enjoy!

BEEF OSSO BUCO WITH PRUNES

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons canola oil
• 8 veal shanks, each 1 1⁄2 to 2 inches (4 to 5cm) thick
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 medium yellow onions, cut into 1-inch (2.5-cm)
  thick slices
• 2 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch (2.5-cm) pieces
• 10 medium garlic cloves
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 cups dry white wine
• 6 to 8 cups store-bought or homemade beef stock
• 2 cups prunes
• Grated zest and juice of 1⁄2 lemon
• 1⁄2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).
2. In a large Tagine pot set over a high heat, warm 2 tablespoons oil. Arrange the veal shanks on a flat surface, pat them dry, and season them generously on all sides with salt and pepper. Brown the first 4 shanks on all sides in the hot oil, 5 to 6 minutes per side.
3. Place the shanks on a baking sheet. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil to the Tagine pot and let the oil heat. Brown the remaining 4 shanks. Don’t rush the browning–t’s the most important part of building deep flavor. Move the second batch of shanks to the baking sheet.
4. Reduce the heat under the Tagine pot to medium and add the onions, carrots, garlic, thyme sprigs and wine. Simmer until the wine is reduced by half, 7 to 8 minutes. Return the shanks to the Tagine pot and cover them with 6 cups beef stock, the tomatoes, and their juices, and if needed, a little water to fully cover the veal.
5. Bring the liquid to simmer over medium heat and skim any impurities from the surface. Cover the Tagine pot and place it in the center of the oven. Braise until the shanks are completely tender, 1 1⁄2 to 2 1⁄4 hours. If the liquid reduces so than less than half the meat is covered, add 2 cups stock and continue cooking the meat. If after 1 1⁄2 hours or so the meat isn’t completely tender, don’t be afraid to add some water and cook it longer.
6. Place the shanks on a platter and season with salt. Simmer the cooking liquid remaining in the Tagine pot over medium heat until slightly reduced, about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings accordingly and stir in the lemon zest and juice and the parsley.
7. Pour the sauce over the shanks. Serve immediately.