Moroccan

This adaptable Moroccan tagine can be as mild or as hot as you can handle. Serve with crusty bread to sop up all the braising juices.

Meskouta is a wonderfully moist yogurt cake that is so easy to prepare.

Meet mlaoui—msemen’s rebellious younger brother—a flaky skillet-fried Moroccan flatbread.

These lacy pancakes are cooked only on one side, which gives them an incredibly light and delicate texture.

This Moroccan chicken tagine recipe is savory and a little bit sweet, and gently spiced with cinnamon.

Tagines are typical street food in Morocco, and this is the one that is most commonly found, except that street vendors cut the potatoes into small dice and I prefer to use new potatoes, which I leave whole if they are very small or halve if they are medium.

This fragrant, hearty stew is traditionally cooked in an earthenware dish on the stove-top, but a slow cooker does the job almost as well.

Millet, a wonderfully healthy, naturally gluten-free grain, stands in for the more common bulgur wheat in the North African–inspired parsley salad in this simple baked chicken dish.

This comforting vegetarian chickpea and lentil soup features warming spices and a hit of lemon juice.

Radiating the aromas of toasted cumin and coriander, and spiked with the salty-sour pucker of cured lemons and olives, this chicken stew produces a heady effect. If you can’t find preserved lemons in your local food markets (high-end stores usually stock them), you can order them or make them yourself.

This couscous salad is just right for a late summer barbecue.

A fragrant, herbaceous sauce acts as both a marinade and a dressing for this pretty, Moroccan-inspired salad.

During the developing and testing process for this book, this dish became Hubby's new favorite. Totally unexpected—I was sure he'd steal a line from the kids and say, "Thank you anyway, but this is not my taste." (We taught them to say that instead of "Ooo, yick!") It's just not the usual stuff and spices he goes for, but apparently the combination was soooo his taste. And mine, too. It's one of those winner recipes that will make you dance around your kitchen. You may hug me now.

We use a slow cooker with a browning option to crisp the chicken skin for this Moroccan-flavored dish. The stew is great on its own but couscous would be an easy and fitting side dish.

(Djej Emshmel) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Paula Wolfert's book Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco. Wolfert also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. Preserved lemons, sold loose in the souks, are one of the indispensable ingredients of Moroccan cooking, used in fragrant lamb and vegetable tagines, recipes for chicken with lemons and olives , and salads. Their unique pickled taste and special silken texture cannot be duplicated with fresh lemon or lime juice, despite what some food writers have said. In Morocco they are made with a mixture of fragrant-skinned doqq and tart boussera lemons, but I have had excellent luck with American lemons from Florida and California. Moroccan Jews have a slightly different procedure for pickling, which involves the use of olive oil, but this recipe, which includes optional herbs (in the manner of Safi), will produce a true Moroccan preserved-lemon taste. The important thing in preserving lemons is to be certain they are completely covered with salted lemon juice. With my recipe you can use the lemon juice over and over again. (As a matter of fact, I keep a jar of used pickling juice in the kitchen, and when I make Bloody Marys or salad dressings and have half a lemon left over, I toss it into the jar and let it marinate with the rest.) Use wooden utensils to remove the lemons as needed. Sometimes you will see a sort of lacy, white substance clinging to preserved lemons in their jar; it is perfectly harmless, but should be rinsed off for aesthetic reasons just before the lemons are used. Preserved lemons are rinsed, in any case, to rid them of their salty taste. Cook with both pulps and rinds, if desired.