Marrakech Cooking Class

Keywords:	Cookery Class ¦ Traditional ¦ Moroccan Cuisine ¦ Reportage
Translations:	Español
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Pigeon pastilla, or pastela, is one of the most elegant dishes in Morroccan cuisine. When I called La Maison Arabe, the posh Marrakech hotel that offers cookery classes, they asked what we wanted to cook. "Tajine or Couscous?", the man said. I asked if we could rather make pigeon pastilla, and he suggested chicken pastilla. I called the next day and got them to agree for the pigeon pastilla - "But as you'll see there is not much to eat on a pigeon".

I showed up at 10 am at the Maison Arabe in the Medina, Marrakesh's old city. There were an American couple and an English doctor and we all boarded a minivan that headed for the suburbs. After 15 minutes, the van entered a gate into a huge walled garden which I first took for some aristocrat's home. We crossed a huge corridor-like garden until we reached the villa. This house is rented out for parties and weddings, but today we had the villa for ourselved. The kitchen is on the first floor, a beautiful space bathed in light where the chef - a diminutive yet imposing grandmother chef known as a Dada - or traditional Morrocan cook was waiting.

Two younger lady assistants and an Arabic-French-English translator, Mohammed, accompanied her. Each of the participants had his/her workplace set up with the tools, ingredients and spices we would need to cook this legendary dish.

Cut the pigeon in half and finely chop the onions. Put everything in a pot and add the turmeric, cinammon, salt and ras-el-hanout.

Cover with water, add a cinammon stick and finely chopped parsley and cilantro.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cover. Leave to simmer until the meat falls off the bones - about 1 hour. I should say that an European cook would start by sautéing the pigeon and onions to enhance their flavor through the browning (Maillard's reaction). Some Morroccon cookbooks do this too but it is optional.

While the pigeon simmers we will prepare the almonds. Morroccans grow amazing almonds and most are sold with the skins on. If so, briefly blanch the almonds (1 to 5 minutes) before shelling them (picture).

Fill half a saucepan with peanut oil and fry the almonds, checking the color from time to time. You want a pale brown. Please note that the almonds will continue to brown after they are removed from the oil so err on the side of too pale.

When browned remove them with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper.

Here is what to do if you brown the almonds too much. The lady chef made two batches and one was too dark. She just left the second one paler to compensate. I should say that you could spare quite a bit of calories by dry-roasting your almonds in the oven like I usually do with good results.

Wait a bit until your almonds have cooled down enough to handle, then put them in a mixer. Add the sugar and cinammon. For European guests, a large tablespoon of sugar is enough, but Morrocans use a tenth of the almonds' weight in sugar.

The dada proceeded carefully with the grinding of our almonds, with the most stern and concentrated look. Had shee been brewing the King's own tea or determining the country's exchange rate, she would not have looked more absorbed and serious. After a number of runs and tastings, she finally pronounced the almond powder fit.

To further flavor the ground almond, our dada added a very large teaspoon of orange blossom water (15ml) ...

... and a large piece of clarified butter to prevent the mixture from being too dry. She mixed everything with her fingers until she was satisfied with the smoothness of the mixture

A generous half-hour break sipping mint tea on the poolside (you can see us trainee cooks on the pool's top left corner). I left our friendly translator Mohammed answer some questions about how many times he prayed every day and went off to explore the garden.

We came back to the kitchen and each to his own pot.

After an hour or so of simmering, the pigeon's flesh was falling off and the sauce much reduced. This dish is very smart as you will see. We break two eggs into the thick sauce and increase the heat to medium-high...

... turning very slowly to scramble the eggs into the sauce.

The idea is to get bits of white and bits of yolk rather than a smooth omelette.

Then we debone the pigeons by hand. The flesh being so soft, it is more a matter of squeezing the legs and pulling the bones out than of scraping.

You end up with the flesh on one side and the bones on the other. You can use the bones for a pigeon broth or for the cat. Finely chop the meat./p>

When we reached this stage I had a big disappointment. The dada pulled out a stack or bought warka sheets, sorts of ultra think oiled crepes. The reason I wanted this course was to learn how to do what I couldn't learn in a book. After all, there are tons of pastilla out there, but making your own warka is a very tricky business. So tricky in fact that they didn't know how to do it at home - they just buy it at the souk. Sure, warka-making would be worth its own course, but I was rather disappointed. Back home you could use industrial brik or filo dough bought at the ethnic store, but real warka is much thinner and more elegant. You can see a very similar process to Morrocan warka-making on this video shot in Asia.

Fold two sheets of warka in half, then in half again two times until you can grab them with one hand. Cut the excess length off if too large. The ideas is to minimize the warka-to-filling ratio.

Oil a dessert plate and unfold both warka sheets on top.

Sprinkle sugar and cinammon.

Add the pigeon flesh and cover with the scrambled eggs and sauce (other photo).

Sprinkle enough ground almond mixture on top to cover (other photo).

Fold the excess warka from the top warka sheet in a pentagon...

... then turn over.

Now fold the bottom warka sheet over the pastilla in the same pentagon shape.

Gently press with a flat hand to close.

Fill a third of a frying pan with peanut oil and increase the heat to high. Test the temperature by dipping a piece of warka in the oil and see if it fries properly.

Gently let the pastilla slip into the oil and fry over high heat, stirring from time to time.

When the bottom has turned golden, use a wooden paddle and plate to delicately flip the pastilla.

The dada took care of my own pastilla while I was busy taking pictures for you guys.

insert a knife into the pastilla and feel the tip for heat. The inside is already cooked but may be cool - the pastilla is ready only when the knife exits warm.

After all this frying it might sound ludicrous to try and pat the excess frying all away, but if you have a roll of kitchen paper around I recommend you do it. Sprinkle icing sugar on top the pastilla. Remember this is a Moorish dish of Persian descent and sweetness is welcome with meats.

Draw lines on the pastilla with powdered cinammon

Serve as a memorable first course - one pastilla per guest. Another view. I tried pigeon pastillas at 3 of the most expensive restaurants in Marrakesh and none tasted better than the one I made under the dada's direction. They all looked just the same. I suppose the warka was better in some places, but this is compensated by the fact that most pastillas are reheated just prior to serving. We ate our pastillas under the trees and all spent a very pleasant day at la:

La Maison Arabe
http://www.lamaisonarabe.com
1, Derb Assehbe Bab Doukkala, Médina
Marrakech, Morrocco
+212 24 38 70 10