Moroccan Dinner

OK, this is not a strictly baking post, although there is baking involved. I LOVE Moroccan food, well, in the limits of my used-to-Belgian-and-American-food palate. And I wanted to try to make some dishes and since there is no fun in cooking if nobody's there to try it, I decided to make a special occasion out of it.
Now, you have to understand, when I make a special occasion out of something, I go all out and stress myself silly for days. My friends know this about me and tease me about it, but hey, that's what friends are for. So, I created invitations for this dinner party and they all agreed to come. There were 8 people total.
Special thank you to Sylvaine for taking pictures all evening long for me :-)

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Hummus and Baba Ghanouj

For appetizers, I served wedges of pita bread with hummus and baba ghanouj.
Hummus is a dip made mostly of chickpeas. I used this recipe and it was so easy and delicious. Note that is is also very garlicky.
Baba ghanouj is made from eggplant. Now, eggplant is not my favorite vegetable, and yet, I decided to make some, go figure. I used this recipe and used less garlic. It turned out quite good too.

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Hummus - with some olive oil and parsley

Baba Ghanouj

B'stilla

This is a baking experiment: I had never used phyllo dough in individual sheets. B'stilla is a sweet/savory pastry, made with chicken, eggs, raisins, onions and various spices. The top of the pastry has powdered sugar and cinnamon. I used this recipe but changed quite a few things: I used cumin, ginger, ground mustard, and cinnamon. I also used fresh parsley from my garden instead of coriander. The other change was the shape of the individual bastilla. I made these little pockets because I didn't have enough of the tartlet molds to make those. Lesson learned: butter each individual sheet, even if two are used together. Oh, and they need to be in the oven more than 10 minutes. Other than that, the result was really good. Hopefully, those who were there will give their opinion of the food, but I impressed myself.

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Tajine and couscous

For the tajine, I used chicken, onion, carrots, raisins and apricots. This is the recipe and let me tell you, I LOVED it!!! The taste was fantastic. The only thing was that the carrots were a bit too crunchy. I think I put too much meat in there and the veggies were not as well covered as they should have been. But the taste was good.
For the couscous, I used a combination of several recipes, taking ideas for vegetables and spices. It also turned out really well, with the only exception that the recipes are for couscous as a whole meal and not a side dish, so I have enough leftovers to eat for 10 days...
I also made a carrot salad inspired by a recipe I found in a Moroccan recipe book I have: shredded carrots with raisins, lemon juice, a bit of sugar, and orange extract.

Baklava

For dessert, I made baklava, using this recipe. This came out perfect. I just need to practice cutting the baklava so the pieces are more or less of the same size. I had the idea of serving them in cupcake liners and it made it easier to grab and eat. I served it with some fresh fruit: grapes, mandarin oranges and plums. I was also supposed to make mint tea, I had the tea, the fresh mint, the special glasses... and I forgot to make the tea... Oooops!

So, this was my adventure into an exotic cuisine. I enjoyed it, I think my guests enjoyed it. I'm pretty proud of myself, if I may say so. I learned a lot and can't wait next week to try something else... Stay tuned!