since 2009

Cooking with the locals in Marrakech

Not only cooking Moroccan food, but also with locals. In their home.

So here we are on a beautiful day in May, just a few days before the starting of Ramadan and nothing seems to foretell it. It’s 10 AM and we are crossing Jemaa El Fna square in the company of Oumaina, our hostess for the day. The vendors are as busy as ever, enticing us with exotic juices, their stalls piled with heaps of oranges and grapefruits. Oumaima, whose English is sublime, is a student at Cadi Ayad university in Marrakech where she studies tourism. Part- time she hosts cooking classes, but also handicraft workshops in zellij, babouche, tadelakt or pottery. She sounds very enthusiastic about the day ahead and her job in general. As we are stepping off the square she muses about her dreams to become a licensed guide in Marrakech, one of the first, if not the first female guide.

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After a few twists and turns around the derbs of the bustling medina with its tourists, shop owners luring their clients in and donkeys pulling carts loaded with carpets, tagines or rubble, we make it to the small riad where the cooking will actually take place. When I say riad, I don’t mean the fancy guesthouses of Marrakech so popular with tourists nowadays. This is literally a local’s home where the lady of the house is preparing the tea, while her niece which is visiting from Spain, is on her way out, leaving her 1 year old baby in the capable hands of the house ladies. There are two common areas on the ground floor where the women spend most of the day, together with the kitchen. On the first floor, one can guess there are two or three more rooms which most likely are dispatched to young married couples. The men would have all gone out to their work earlier and probably would come back home late afternoon.

02

After passing on the invitation to tea, we head out back into the streets. Our next stop on our Moroccan cookery class? The butcher. Aicha, our cook for the day, joined us for the shopping. While Oumaima is busy describing every day life inside the house, Aicha stands in line waiting to purchase some good chicken thighs. Once the chicken purchased, we slalom past the crowd into the open air souika, the colourful local market. We’ll need onions, lemons, parsley, tomatoes and aubergines. Aicha knows her providers and so she sorts the ingredients out. Some guests would prefer skipping taking photos of the exotic stands and instead bargain for vegetables themselves…

10

Back on our tracks and across Place des Epices, where slave auctions used to take place in the not- so- distant past, we are heading towards the square, more precisely just behind it, where the preserved vegetables market takes shelter. Once our olives purchased, we are pressing on to the riad, just when the heat starts stifling.

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Now it’s time for action. Aprons on, we are handed the necessary kitchen ware and off we go. It seems that I will be in charge of preparing the chicken tagine while Leila will supervise the zaalouk, a popular tapenade made out of smoked aubergines, tomatoes and garlic. I’m a fiend for zaalouk so I will certainly peep over. Before anything else, Aicha sets about by rinsing the chicken parts… with lemon juice. By her account, the juice not only kills all the germs but also renders the chicken tender throughout the cooking.

04

I start with placing the chicken thighs inside the tagine. Then, it’s the turn of the garlic which I chop really slender and sprinkle it over the chicken. Leila gives me a hand with chopping the parsley which is sprinkled next. Tears run down my cheeks thinking of the chicken that had to be sacrificed for our lunch… I’m kidding, of course. I’ve sliced so much onion that it completely shelters the chicken by now. Next, it’s time for decorating with olives, spice it with a little saffron powder and lastly, pour a good ladleful of olive oil over. Our cook tells us there’s no point in using water as the chicken will let out liquid while cooking.

05

We place the tagine over the fire, not before wedging a metal plate in between to help diffuse the heat of the direct flame and avoid cracking the adobe tagine. TIP: never expose the tagine stewer to direct flame and settle the flame as low as possible.

06

While the tagine is cooking, we place the aubergines next to the fire and turn them around so that they don’t burn. Once ready and pulled from the flame, Leila will sit down and peel them, before chopping them as fine as we can. We grind the tomatoes and the garlic and we mix it all with a good pinch of paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. We then place it all on the fire in a pan and slow cook it while mixing with a spoon occasionally. When I thought I played my part, Aicha showed up with a tray and informed me it was time for making Moroccan bread.

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After sifting two kinds of flour and working the dough ( don’t ask me how to shed the dough off your fingers) it’s getting somewhat tricky to turn those lumps into perfect circles which are then to be shoved inside the oven, not before puncturing them with a fork.

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While the tagine and zaalouk are cooking and the bread is baking, we are being served a Moroccan tea. And it feels well deserved. Some half hour later everything is ready and lavishly spread on a table in the patio. Out of the two, I find the zaalouk to be the better. Bread chunk in hand we dig into the tagine, traditional way. The onion has completely sunk and caramelized and the chicken is as tender as it gets. I can finally brag about knowing how to make zaalouk, one of the staples of Moroccan cuisine…

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Please note that such a class would take about 5 hours, lunch included. Cooking with the locals in Marrakech is offered as a choice of activities while on one of our bespoke Morocco tours.

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Zach TobinZach Tobin
22:16 29 Jan 23
Traveling alone internationally with a 7-year-old for the first time had me a bit nervous, but Sun Trails made our week-long visit to Morocco a flawless and unforgettable experience (we toured the south of the country). Daoud was an exceptional driver through all sorts of terrain while also being so kind, patient, and personable to my daughter and me. The accommodations, food, and activities throughout were excellent in terms of value. I would recommend Sun Trails to anyone who is looking to have an incredible time in Morocco.
gosia lukomskagosia lukomska
13:46 29 Jan 23
We had the trip of a lifetime with Cristian's company. We feel like we made life long friends with his amazing guides who are knowledgeable, kind, and excellent at their profession. The hotels that he chose were boutique gems and our itinerary was so well executed. We even had some surprise desert picnics! The attention to detail and level of customer service surpassed our expectations. I would highly recommend anyone visiting Morocco to do so with this company.
Henri OrmusHenri Ormus
19:43 15 Jan 23
We had a great off-the-beaten-track experience with our guides Majid, Daoud, Leila and rest of the crew. The whole trip was well organized and our wishes were handled with care. Our group of adventurers got some very real local experience. We had too many interesting experiences to describe but of course the Western Sahara desert hike was superb (but I would recommend definitely 3 days instead of 2 days what we did) but actually the best was the hike in the deserty mountains with staying overnight in large tent carried by donkey... beautiful landscapes, very different actually, over the hills and through the valleys and dried-out rivers. One evening dinner was a goat bought from local nomads once arrived at the camping site. End of the hike was beautiful pools of water to swim in. Thank you Sun-Trails crew, it was great! Henri from Estonia
Rob MRob M
22:51 27 Dec 22
I highly recommend Sun Trails for your Morocco adventure. Our guide, Mustafa, was top notch and an incredibly fun and knowledgeable person for our 6-day journey from Marrakesh to Fes (via Merzouga). Sun Trails has some fantastic vehicles that can get you through the toughest terrain (including through sand dunes). The staff seem to know someone or something cool to see (or something delicious to eat) in just about every town on your journey. We felt safe and secure with our wonderful guide and friend. Yes, a private tour with Sun Trails is going to cost a bit more than the ones you may stumble across online. But trust me when I say you get what you pay for with Sun Trails. I’ve already recommended them several times to friends and strangers.
Kristi HarmarKristi Harmar
08:09 03 May 22
I wish I could give this review more than 5 stars. We are doing a world tour - and this trip with Suntrails (with Daoud as our guide) is by far the highlight of the entire trip. We did a 4 day tour to the Erg Chigaga dunes in the Sahara and it was incredible. The accommodations, sights and car were great but what made this trip so amazing for us was our guide, Daoud. In order to see the things we wanted, we had several long days in the car and we did the trip with 2 small children (2 and 5). Daoud was fantastic with our kids - playing with them and entertaining them and the kids are still asking me to see him 2 months later.We decided on the "dreamer" level of accommodation with an upgrade to a luxury tent for the night in the Sahara. I deliberated a lot about which level/price point to choose but what we chose was perfect. The tagines were amazing and the riads were beautiful. Cristian took care (and a lot of emails) to help me include everything I requested out of this trip: camel riding, adventure off the beaten track, hiking to a kasbah, etc. Our guide, Daoud even walked to the next closest desert camp to find us a sand board one morning.I could go on and on about this experience but I will just say that I have recommended it to anyone I have spoken to about Morocco. I never repeat trips but I am planning a future trip to come back to Morocco just to do another trip with Suntrails to explore more of the country off the beaten track.