Chicken with pickled lemon & green olives

I don’t know why a lot of the Moroccan cuisine give me the impression that it is more of a ritual than anything else. I have not seen anywhere else people being full heartedly devoted to their cooking traditions as I have seen it & feel in every Moroccan home I ve been to. You feel that especially in weddings if you were lucky and close enough from the family celebrating to take a peek to what’s going on in the kitchen (usually it’s an open area where they would hire women cooks who have the reputation of cooking for weddings) to enjoy the smells of the refined meals destined for the guests Usually this process of cooking takes long hours of slow cooking and acute attention. Well, not all families do this these days because they prefer the fancy way (hiring a company to fix all the arrangements for you instead of going through the trouble). Anyways, I think it just shows how important are traditions in my country.

This dish is made usually for special events, so I thought I would share it because it’s really worth trying and gives you an idea of why the Moroccan cuisine is both famous & addictive. The results can not be described in words! Trust me.

We had this dish for our dinner special in Ramadan, & while eating I told my hubby “hmmm I’m glad mom taught me how to make this. His reply came spontaneous: “So am I!!!” 🙂 I didn’t mean to but I guess I just made him think of how much lucky he is 😉 lol

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Chicken vermicelli with almonds

This dish is famous in Morocco, it’s a mixture of salty and sweet flavors. It may sound strange to some people but trust me it’s delicious. A lot of these dishes are especially cooked in special occasions (feasts, weddings, parties..). There are other similar dishes that I promise to post in the future.

So here is a picture of chicken vermicelli with almonds. You must be wondering where is the chicken then? hhhh..well you will know it after a while 😉

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Tanjia (A Moroccan, Marrakchi gourmet)

This dish brings a lot of memories..As a child I always used to get excited when my mother cooked Tanjia for dinner. The smell of slow cooked meat is mouth watering and waiting for it to get ready was immensely torturious!

To give you an idea of how good it is, many times my fathers’ friends used to ask him to have this dish when he invited them over for dinner! LOL

It is a special Marrakchi dish made with meat and spices. Originally it is a recipe cooked by men when they go for outdoor picnics in spring time to play cards and enjoy music. It is cooked in a pot of clay for about 4 hours, usually in the public hammam (bath) where it’s covered and buried in hot ashes. If you go to Marrakech, you don’t want to miss savoring this Moroccan gourmet!

So, here is the pressure cooker version of this gourmet. Of course I prefer the original version, but this is better than nothing, and it is not bad at all!

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