Day 4: In Morocco; Day 2: In the Medina - Syarra

After some research we decided to take a visit to the Medina but now it is for a different reason. Now it is not to explore; it is so we can become Moroccan chefs. We learned how in a cooking class.

Part 1: Ingredients

We were on our way to meet our instructor at a small café. Though we had to go through the Medina. The Medina is nothing like what I have seen before; it has everything from snake charmers to chicken sellers, who kill the chicken in front of you. Also the medina has sections for everything.

When we got to the café our instructor was there. We then went back to the Medina and went to get our ingredients for our lunch that we decided was going to be a lamb with apricot Tagine. A Tagine is similar to a casserole in that it is a mix of things cooked and served in a dish. The dish is called a tagine and looks like this.

Along with that we had meatball tagine, zucchini salad, and mango juice. The first thing we got was vegetables, which included 8 zucchinis that are tiny here, 2 onions, and 6 tomatoes. Then we got a kilogram of cuts of lamb from the thigh and a half kilogram of ground beef. At the butcher, bottom halves of lambs were hanging from the celling much to Carver’s amazement. After that we got orange juice, we bought 2 cups to drink and a liter and a half to use. We also bought about a dozen apricots and walnuts and two mangoes. We bought bread called khobz that looks like this.
 

 Then our shopping was done until it wasn’t.

Part 2: Cooking

We went down an alley were stray cats walk and only motorcycles drive to their houses.

We went inside a house that was really an apartment like thing. We sat down only to get up so we could get mint for some mint tea special to Morocco. Then we went up to the top of that building where the architecture is amazing. The stone looks like it could crumble away any minute.

Then we went down and had tea. There is a special way to serve tea in morocco. They start by pouring just normal but then they slowly raise it high. We enjoyed a few cups of tea and then we got ready to cook.

I would guess that you have never used your cheese grater for tomatoes. We now have, we grated 2 tomatoes. Our half kilogram of beef was for the meatballs. We had to reach our hands in to the beef, which had some common Moroccan spices in it (1 tsp. paprika, ¼ tsp. ginger, 2 tsp. garlic, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper, 1 tsp. parsley/coriander, and 1 tsp. turmeric.) then you reach your hands in the slimy feeling beef and kneed like it is a bread. After mixing it, we rolled it into as many meatballs as we could. As that was happening we had put the grated tomato sauce with water and a cup of olive oil on the stove to cook for 20 minutes. Then the meatballs cook for 35 minutes. We added 4 eggs to make a fried egg layer. Then we sprinkled on some more parsley/coriander and let it cook for 5 to 10 minutes and you have meatball tagine.

If anyone is interested, we can share some of the other recipes also. I enjoyed the cooking class and I hope to do more like it around the world.