Harira and Casablanca-style Couscous — Two Traditional Moroccan Dishes

Its cuisine is one of Morocco’s prominent features. Many people like to partake in the country’s traditional meals, as well as collect recipes and recreate them in their own kitchens. Two of the most popular Moroccan dishes include harira and couscous with seven vegetables and meat.

Couscous with seven vegetables and meat is also referred to as Casablanca-style, and couscous itself holds statuses as Morocco’s national dish and one of North Africa’s most famous foods. The Casablanca-style variation traditionally features steamed couscous piled with stewed vegetables and bone-in meat such as beef, lamb, or chicken. While there is no rule on what particular vegetables to include, using a variety is essential for an authentically-flavored sauce. Additionally, garnishing the meal with tfaya has become a popular trend. Tfaya is a mixture of caramelized onions and raisins that can adorn other couscous dishes as well.

For making the stewed meat, the ingredients necessary are a whole chicken or about 2.2 pounds of another meat, three medium-sized tomatoes, a large onion, olive oil, and seasonings like salt, black pepper, turmeric and ginger. The couscous requires approximately 2.2 pounds of dry couscous, along with olive oil and salt. Some vegetables traditionally incorporated comprise cabbage, carrots, onions, squash, zucchini, and turnips.

Preparing Casablanca-style couscous starts with stewing the meat, onion, and tomatoes in the base of a couscoussier until the meat browns and a thick sauce forms. Next, the couscous is steamed using the couscoussier’s steamer basket three times, the first time by itself. The selected vegetables are added to the stewed meat during the couscous’ second and third steaming.

Another authentic Moroccan dish is harira, a classic tomato-based comfort soup with lentils, chickpeas, various seasonings. It is especially popular during Ramadan as a meal to break the fast, although it is regularly consumed outside of Ramadan as well. Depending on serving size, this soup can serve as the main course or an appetizer of a meal.

Harira is an old dish with numerous variations as a result of families passing down their recipes across multiple generations. It is often made with meats like lamb or beef, but many recipes offer a vegan or vegetarian verssion by omitting the meat.

The staple ingredients of harira comprise tomato paste, lentils, onion, celery, vermicelli noodles, and soaked and peeled dried chickpeas, as well as parsley and ground spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger. Common modifications or additions range from incorporating both tomato paste and pureed fresh tomatoes to replacing the vermicelli with rice or another type of pasta. To thicken the soup, people add flour and a few cups of water.

To prepare the soup, the first step is to brown the meat, if included, by cooking it in olive oil for several minutes using a pressure cooker or stockpot. Timing and order vary by recipe when adding the vegetables, but most mix in the herbs and spices at the beginning and save the noodles and lentils for the last several minutes. Many Moroccan families also garnish the finished dish a squeeze of lemon.