The second day of cooking class

I'm just by myself today. We discussed the menu and it looks a lot of food! I was so excited. Like yesterday, we went to the market for shopping. On the first day, we had something like eggrolls. The skin was neither filo nor eggroll, though. I just found out that is called warqa. It is thicker and more flexible than filo dough. It seems most Moroccan restaurants in the US use filo dough as a substitute for warqa. I saw how it's made at the market - very fascinating. They grab sticky dough (much stickier than pizza dough) and drop it onto a hot crepe pan. Most of the dough is still sticking to their hands and only a small amount of dough stays on the pan. This creates a paper-like thickness. After it's cooked, they brush a small amount of oil between each sheet to avoid having them stick to each other. Unlike filo dough, it doesn't get dried out so quickly.



Lamb Tagine

Spiced and seasoned lamb was covered by sliced sweet potatoes.

Grilled Sardine

Spiced and seasoned sardine fillets are placed on top of sliced oranges and tomatoes and grilled. Very nice. I thought the orange is for the flavor but I found out we are supposed to eat the fish with the orange slices.

Warqa with almond paste

                                                               This is warqa, cut into strips

                              Almond, sugar and butter paste are wrapped in to make a triangle shape

                 There could be a specific name for these sweets. But I forgot to write it down....


Bastilla

This is traditional bastilla with pigeon. Again, this is a super fresh pigeon which was alive a few hours ago... But these particular pigeons were pretty small.

The pigeons are fried in a pot with various spices and aromatics. Then, water is added and cooked until it gets really tender. After removing all the bones, the meats are shredded very finely

Shredded meats and reduced cooking liquids are wrapped in warqa and baked in the oven.

Topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Compared to bastilla I've had in the US (with filo dough), it was more difficult to eat with fork only (I used a knife). The warqa is much tougher.

Another application of warqa. The instructor let me choose the shape so that I don't think this is the traditional way of presentation. The filling is caramelized onion and golden raisin. When I was at culinary school, we had a final exam for international cuisine class. Every student was given 1/2 chicken and cooked an appetizer and main dish to represent the country that the student was assigned to (everyone had a different country). Mine was Morocco. The only criteria are to utilize the chicken as much as possible and create the dish to represent the cuisine's characteristics. Because the other ingredients are only things available in the kitchen, we couldn't create an authentic dish. Any fusion dishes were fine as long as they are identifiable as coming from the specific cuisine. Interestingly, I made something like this. It's very funny.

Beet soup

This is another very satisfying vegetarian soup, the liquid on the top is orange juice and melted butter


Moroccan Salad

                                 This is the same Moroccan salad that we had on the first day.


Crepe

I guess this is the French influence. Pretty much the same as a French crepe but it's a bit fluffier so that it's closer to a Swedish pancake. We could have used any filling but this is just a plain crepe. We used vanilla sugar (for most sweets we made, also). It seems vanilla sugar is more popular than vanilla extract.

By the way, people in most parts of Morocco are heavily influenced by France and many of them speak fluent French (Moroccan law is written in French). But the northern tip of Morocco is more Spanish influenced (obviously because it's close to Spain). I would love to see how food in that region differs from the rest of the Morocco.

We prepared more stuff for tomorrow. I'm going to explain these dishes in tomorrow's entry.

The first day of cooking class

The owner prepared a nice breakfast.

                                                                      Fruit and yogurt

The triangles behind the croissant are called Mssamen which is kind of like a flat crepe. It's more chewy and dense than a crepe though. To me, it's like a Chinese onion pancake without the onion. I think that's the closest comparison I can make.This is something very traditional, so I saw it at many food stands in the city. We are going to make this in the class.

I discussed what to cook with the instructor (the owner of the riad). She is an Australian who married a Moroccan gentleman. She's lived in Morocco for more than 10 years. She also has a Moroccan assistant whose English is very limited. We've decided to make quite a few dishes. I didn't recognize some of the dishes but I said "yes" to almost all of her suggestions because I wanted to try things that I didn't even know.

I was told that I'll have a classmate just for today. A very nice English man showed up as she started teaching us how to go to the market and buy ingredients in Arabic. After the super short Arabic crash course, we headed to the market. The market is located in a place I would not have expected. The inside was pretty big and looked very "authentic" (if you know what I mean....). Many groceries, produce, meat, poultry and seafood. The seafood looked super fresh which I didn't really expect because Marrakesh is not that close to the sea. It seems they ship fresh seafood every day from nearby ports. And some of the meats are "SUPER" fresh. They are really fresh because they are still alive (think chicken, pigeons and rabbits). We just told them how many we wanted and how we were planning to prepare them. Usually we ordered meats first and then continued with other shopping. After all the shopping was done, we'd just pick the meats up.

We took turns ordering the ingredients in Arabic. Basically we were just reading whatever we wrote down in our notebooks. People at the market were nice enough to tolerate our horrible pronunciation. I really enjoyed this because I had the riad owner as a "back-up",


As soon as we came back from shopping we started to make Moroccan mint tea. We started by washing tea leaves. First we poured hot water very gently onto the tea leaves. The liquid is poured out very gently again and saved (this is not to wash the tea leaves). Then, we poured hot water again (not gently this time) and shook well. We repeated this 3 times in order to remove any dirt from the leaves. The reason the first water is saved is that it's the best part of the tea. After that, we filled the pot with clean hot water along with sugar and a bunch of mint. Then, we let it sit for a while. When served, it's poured from high above the cup "3 times" to cool the tea a little and also to create foam. I'm so glad to know how to make real Moroccan tea.

Mssamen

I learned how to make this with the Moroccan assistant. This is like a baguette for the French or pasta for the Italians so don't mess with Moroccans about mssamen! The Moroccan assistant was very specific about how to knead the dough (which is a non yeast dough). You have to hold both hands in a specific way and press them down in a specific way (yes, very specific...). No matter what I did, the assistant kept laughing and didn't approve it. What's the difference??? Neither me or my English classmate could get her approval.....

The rolled out dough is folded with a small amount of oil so that it makes layers.
 


Tomato chutney with egg

This is the instructor's creation. Normally the tomato chutney is served alone but she added eggs on top. It looks like shakshuka which is typical breakfast dish from northern Africa to the Middle East. But she didn't know about it, so maybe not in Morocco? Anyway this is very good!! We had this for lunch and it was definitely the favorite dish of the day for both me and my English classmate.

Chicken Tajine

Tajine is the famous Moroccan cooking pot. The shallow pot and cone shaped lids function like a slow cooker. This chicken was the one that was alive a few hours ago. The English classmate said the meat was still warm. But we later figured out that the warmth is from the hot water the butcher used to clean it. When I filleted a fish that was alive a few hours before, I felt some muscle spasm because the nerve system was still alive. So, I was a bit afraid that I may feel the same thing from the chicken. Luckily I didn't feel any... Good.....

The chicken was prepared with preserved lemon. The lemon was cut into a half and pressed into the top of the chicken before cooking. That's probably the traditional way, but I wish we could use chopped or mushed preserved lemon to enhance the lemon flavor. Still, good though.

Sardine kefta tajine

This is another good dish. Like I said above, the seafood was very fresh at the market. And so was this sardine. It looked like we could have eaten it raw - it was that fresh. The filleted sardine was mashed with herbs and spices by hand so that you could tell this is really a fish ball. The result was very "good" fishy balls (without that bad fishy-ness). I wish we hadn't cooked it so long because the fish was so fresh. But everything in a tajine pot should be cooked slow and long. So, this must be cultural.

Cous cous

The Moroccan assistant did most of the preparation for this. She spent quite a bit of time rubbing cous cous with oil and water until it gets the right texture. Then, she steamed it with water flavored with spices and lemon juice. This is something I didn't know at all. Then, she rubbed it again with oil. I'm so glad I got to see the proper way to prepare cous cous. The is the presentation used for a special occasion so it's not always garnished with powdered sugar, cinnamon and almond as you see in the photo below.

After lunch, we went to the spice market. A young Moroccan man welcomed us with tea and explained the different spices with in very good English. This is a spice market for bulk purchase so it doesn't look like a store but the corner of the warehouse.

By the way, we often used the spice, called Ras El Hanout, which means "Head of the shop." This is mixture of essential spices, such as cardamom, nutmeg, anise, mace, cinnamon, ginger, various peppers, and turmeric. But the recipe varies based upon who made it. I would say this is Moroccan version of garam masala.


After we came back from the spice market, we continued cooking.


Egg dipped cauliflower

Boiled cauliflower is broken down to smaller pieces and dipped into an egg, spice and herb mixture, then fried. Again, this is another satisfying vegetarian dish.


Squid

The squid was marinated in various spices & herbs and orange juice for a few hours, then cooked slowly. Both me and the English classmate thought that squid is supposed to be cooked quickly to avoid making it tough. But because the squid is marinated and cooked slowly, the squid meat was very flavorful.

Baked meringue and saffron custard

We made two deserts today. The baked meringue is the same one that we had last night. Saffron custard is another typical Moroccan desert.

I guess we did a lot in one day... I just can't wait for the next two classes!

Marrakesh, Morocco

First, we flew from Bilbao to Madrid in the early morning, then connected with the flight to Marrakesh, Morocco. I was expecting many Moroccans on the plane but everyone I saw (except 2 guys) looked European. Maybe that's because we were using Iberia Air?

When we arrived at the Marrakesh airport, I already had some culture shock... It looked like a municipal airport in middle of desert; I thought Marrakesh was a touristy city.

After clearing customs, we were looking for the driver who was supposed to pick us up at the airport. But we didn't see anyone holding a board with our names. We waited for a while and started to panic a little. It's not the type of place where you want to be left alone (at this point, I felt like I was on another planet....). By the time we tried to figure out how to make a phone call though, a young man showed up apologizing for being late. I was really glad to see him.

Then, we were transferred to a riad. Riads are a type of traditional Moroccan housing. The owner of the riad also runs the cooking class as well as arranging tours. Her riad is so beautiful and the courtyard (which is typical feature of riads.) was very nicely decorated. She was waiting for us with a nice lunch.


First, this was a Moroccan bread. It's a bit like pita bread.

Next was Moroccan salad. Many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries have their own version of this type of salad (tomato, cucumber, onion, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper). But the difference in this salad was hard boiled egg. As well as the sliced hard boiled egg on top, the chopped eggs were mixed in the salad. So, it looked a bit "mayonnaisey".

Another salad. Different vegetables, including carrot, green beans, zucchini, rice, etc. were tossed with mayonnaise and topped with olive and parsley. Because of the rice, it was more substantial.

This chicken was excellent. It was marinated with different spices and topped with caramelized onion. Very flavorful.

After lunch, we explored the city center. As we started walking towards the square, things get more lively. We saw a bunch of food stands and they looked so inviting (even without the famously aggressive Moroccan salespeople). Because we would have dinner soon at the riad, I was trying to behave...


 We had a dinner on the terrace of the riad. It had cooled down and there was a nice breeze. I was expecting a very warm night so I was very glad of this.

This was the starter. It looked like an eggroll. But the skin is even thinner and crispier than an egg roll. I thought it was filo dough at first but it had more body. The inside was, I guess, sweet potato.

                               This soup was excellent! It was all vegetarian but very satisfying.

                This is tangia, which is the name of the pot as well as dishes cooked in the pot.

This was inside the pot - lamb. Very slowly cooked so that the meat fell off the bone. Very complex and spicy (not "hot" spicy, though).

From the left, carrot jam (more like chutney), sweet potato and egg plant. All very good.

 

 

Dessert - baked meringue. It had some floral note. Crunchy outside and soft inside.

 

 

This is still the first day. And I'm so full..... I'll have 3 days "intensive" cooking class from tomorrow....



 

 

 

Last day in the Basque region

Today, we went to one of the biggest indoor food markets in Europe. It's located by the Ribera metro station. Inside it's all about produce, meat and seafood. It's a two-story building and it looked like it used to be a part of train station mall.

                                                                 This sign was at the entrance.

                                                                 Nice building isn't it?

                                                           Amazingly fresh seafood.

Every time I go to markets like this, I really want to buy stuff and cook it myself. But there was no kitchen in the hotel. Plus, I'd rather try a bunch of different dishes at restaurants for such a short stay.



Anyway, we went to our first pintxos bar of the day, called Gure Toki. The very friendly server was helping us with broken Spanglish (Spanish 90% English 10%). And I tried to understand him with my Engnish (English 90% and Spanish 10%). I don't think we understood each other well but I decided to take some of his recommendations. These were all made to order hot pintxos.

First, fried soft shell crab with red pepper sauce (a bit spicy but not like Mexican spicy salsa). Very good.

This is a dish recommended by the server, called "kokotxa". In fact, we saw kokotxa at the market that we went to earlier. We realized that the name is the same as the restaurant that we went to in San Sebastian. Because we found this at the fish market, we knew this is some sort of seafood. It was small fish-like pieces but didn't look filleted. So, I thought it's some organ or roe. We still didn't know what kokotxa was at this point (later I Googled and found that it's hake (fish) cheeks. Usually cheek meat has some texture but this was really soft).

                               Breaded pulled beef cheek meat. Very pretty presentation.

Foie gras. Amazing presentation. Well executed. But the foie gras was more like "liver" with irony flavor. I guess a bit lower grads. It was only 3.50 Euro....

                                             Scallop. Unfortunately, it was a bit too salty...


After some sightseeing and rest at the hotel, we decided to do the same thing as yesterday; visit a few pintxos bars for appetizers then go to a restaurant.

                                        At the first bar of the evening, we had mushrooms and fried fish with peppers.


The second bar of the evening was Café Iruna

                      The one on the left is smoked salmon and the one on the right is sardine with (probably)red bell pepper paste.


It's around 8:00 on Friday. Some streets with a bunch of pintxos bars are very crowded like this.

The entrée for the evening was paella. Paella is not a traditional food in the Basque region but rather in the southeast, like Valencia. But we thought Bilbao may offer a nice seafood paella. We arrived at the restaurant around 8:30pm and nobody was there. But I knew it was just a bit too early.

This is again hake cheek. At this point, we didn't know it was kokotxa. So, we had kokotxa twice today. It was very good!

This is a seafood paella for two. Very nicely seasoned. But it didn't have the distinctive saffron flavors. Maybe that's the Basque style?

That's the end of the meals in the Basque region because we are flying to Marrakesh, Morocco tomorrow. One thing I noticed in the Basque region is the salt level. Compared to the dishes we've had in Italy and France, it seems almost all the dishes had a tiny bit more salt (acceptable saltiness, though).

Anyway, it's worth making a trip to the Basque region for the pintxos alone.