All 690 recipes
Page 18 of 29 · Showing recipes 409–432
Main course
Eid Barley Couscous with Smen
A rustic celebration couscous made with nutty barley grain and enriched with fermented smen and butter, steamed light and served with a little broth and buttermilk on the side. In many Amazigh and rural homes this is the couscous of Eid and family gatherings, prized above wheat couscous for its earthy depth and heartiness.
- Total time
- 75 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Medium
Main course
Festive Lamb Shoulder with Ras el Hanout
A whole lamb shoulder rubbed with a generous ras el hanout, garlic and smen, then roasted low and slow until the spiced crust darkens and the meat pulls away in tender shreds — the home-oven answer to a whole mechoui for a family celebration. Served with cumin and salt for dipping, it is festive food that needs little more than bread and a salad.
- Total time
- 230 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Medium
Soup
Iftar Chickpea & Lentil Shorba
A gentler alternative to harira for breaking the fast — a brothy shorba of chickpeas and lentils simmered with tomato, celery and warming spices, thickened lightly and brightened with lemon and coriander. It rehydrates and refuels without the heaviness of a full harira, exactly what an empty stomach wants at sunset.
- Total time
- 65 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Easy
Snack
Ramadan Stuffed Dates with Walnut Paste
Breaking the fast begins with dates, and these are dressed up — plump Medjool dates split and filled with a spiced walnut-and-orange-blossom paste, then rolled in a little sesame or coconut. Sweet, energy-rich and quick to make, they sit on the iftar table beside the soup and are handed round with mint tea.
- Total time
- 20 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Easy
Drink
Iftar Date & Banana Milk
A thick, naturally sweet blended milk of dates and banana that many Moroccans drink at iftar to restore blood sugar gently after the fast — no refined sugar, just fruit, milk and a touch of cinnamon and orange-blossom. Cool, filling and quick, it doubles as drink and light nourishment in one glass.
- Total time
- 10 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Snack
Zamita (Roasted Barley Energy Flour)
Zamita is a dense, energy-packed Amazigh preparation of roasted barley (and sometimes fenugreek and aniseed) ground fine and mixed with olive or argan oil, honey and spices into a nutty, spoonable mixture. Eaten at suhoor and given to travellers and workers, it sustains for hours — a close relative of sellou built on barley rather than wheat.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Servings
- Serves 8
- Difficulty
- Medium
Breakfast
Suhoor Msemmen with Honey & Butter
For the pre-dawn suhoor, flaky square msemmen fried fresh and eaten hot with butter and honey is a beloved slow-release start to the fasting day. The laminated dough gives lasting energy, and made in a batch the night before they reheat in minutes on a dry pan while the house wakes for the meal.
- Total time
- 65 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Medium
Snack
Iftar Hard-Boiled Eggs with Cumin Salt
A tiny but essential fixture of the Moroccan iftar table — hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved, served with a little dish of ground cumin and salt to dip each bite into. Simple, protein-rich and quick to reach for at the moment of breaking the fast, they sit beside the harira and dates almost without fail.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Soup
Iftar Rice & Tomato Shorba
A soothing, quick shorba for breaking the fast — rice simmered in a light tomato and onion broth with warming ginger and a lift of fresh coriander and lemon. Softer and milder than harira, it is a gentle bowl for children and delicate stomachs at the start of iftar, ready in half an hour.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Easy
Dessert
Mhalbi (Orange-Blossom Rice-Flour Pudding)
Mhalbi is a delicate, wobbling milk pudding set with rice flour and perfumed with orange-blossom water, chilled and finished with cinnamon and chopped nuts. Cool and lightly sweet, it is a favourite Ramadan dessert to make ahead and pull cold from the fridge after iftar, soothing after a day of fasting.
- Total time
- 25 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Easy
Breakfast
Suhoor Semolina Milk Soup (Tahrira)
A soft, soothing semolina cooked in sweetened milk with a little butter and a hint of orange-blossom, eaten warm at suhoor to line the stomach gently before a day of fasting. Quick, comforting and easy on the digestion, it is the kind of nursery-warm bowl that helps you face the pre-dawn dark.
- Total time
- 20 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Drink
Hlba (Warming Fenugreek Drink)
Hlba is a warming, faintly bitter-sweet fenugreek drink taken during Ramadan and cold weather — fenugreek seeds simmered until soft, sweetened with honey and enriched with a little milk and spice. Traditionally valued as a tonic for strength and digestion, it is sipped hot and slow, especially at suhoor.
- Total time
- 30 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Drink
Iftar Carob & Date Warmer
A naturally sweet, caffeine-free warm drink for breaking the fast — carob powder and dates simmered into milk with cinnamon, giving a mellow, chocolate-like richness without the stimulation of coffee or tea. Gentle and grounding, it is a soothing way to ease the stomach at iftar or wind down before suhoor.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Drink
Khoudenjal (Spiced Galangal Warming Drink)
Khoudenjal is Marrakech's famous winter and Ramadan warmer — a dark, intensely spiced infusion built on galangal (khodenjal) with ginger, black pepper, cinnamon and other roots, sweetened and often served with a spoonful of ground almonds and a boiled egg on the side. Sold from steaming urns in the medina after dark, it is prized as a warming, invigorating tonic.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Medium
Soup
Iftar Red Lentil & Cumin Soup
A smooth, quick red lentil soup spiced with cumin, ginger and a little tomato, blended velvety and finished with lemon — red lentils collapse in twenty minutes, making this one of the fastest, most comforting bowls to have ready for breaking the fast. Warming, naturally thick and gentle on an empty stomach.
- Total time
- 35 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Easy
Breakfast
Suhoor Cured Meat & Eggs (Kadid)
A savoury, sustaining suhoor of preserved cured meat (kadid) fried in its own spiced fat and finished with eggs cracked straight into the pan — salty, rich and full of the deep flavour of the meat, it lines the stomach for a long fasting day. Cooked in a small tagine or skillet, it is eaten hot with bread.
- Total time
- 20 min
- Servings
- Serves 3
- Difficulty
- Easy
Street food
Iftar Fried Potato Cakes (Batata)
Crisp little potato cakes — mashed potato bound with egg, garlic and herbs, sometimes coated and fried golden — are a popular savoury bite on the iftar table, satisfying the craving for something hot and crunchy after the sweetness of dates and soup. Quick to shape and fry, they disappear fast among family.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Easy
Street food
Iftar Fried Cheese Cigars
Slim, crisp pastry cigars filled with melting seasoned cheese and herbs, rolled in warqa or filo and fried golden — a moreish savoury for the iftar spread that shatters at the first bite to reveal a soft, salty centre. Easy to roll in a batch and fry to order, they are a favourite alongside the soup and briouat.
- Total time
- 45 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Medium
Drink
Iftar Avocado & Date Smoothie
A thick, silky avocado smoothie sweetened only with dates and blended with milk — a rich, filling glass that Moroccans love at iftar for its lasting energy and creamy comfort. The avocado gives body and good fats, the dates the sweetness, and a little orange-blossom the fragrance.
- Total time
- 10 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Soup
Iftar Pumpkin & Ginger Soup
A smooth, warming pumpkin soup spiced with ginger and cumin and finished with a swirl of olive oil, gentle and naturally sweet for breaking the fast. The squash blends to a silky, comforting bowl that soothes an empty stomach, made in one pot in half an hour.
- Total time
- 45 min
- Servings
- Serves 5
- Difficulty
- Easy
Drink
Suhoor Fig & Walnut Milk
A nourishing blended milk for the pre-dawn meal — dried figs and walnuts whizzed into warm milk with cinnamon, giving a thick, mineral-rich drink that provides slow, steady energy for the fasting day. Naturally sweet from the figs and grounding from the nuts, it is both drink and light meal in a glass.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Servings
- Serves 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Snack
Iftar Date & Sesame Balls
No-cook energy balls of blended dates, toasted sesame and a little nut butter, rolled in more sesame — sweet, chewy and quick to make in a big batch for the Ramadan table. They break the fast with an instant lift of natural sugar and keep for days, handy to grab at suhoor too.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Servings
- Serves 8
- Difficulty
- Easy
Main course
Dafina (Moroccan-Jewish Sabbath Stew)
Dafina — also called skhina — is the great slow-cooked Shabbat stew of Moroccan Jews, assembled on Friday and left overnight on a low flame so it is ready to eat on Saturday when cooking is forbidden. Beef, marrow bones, chickpeas, whole eggs, potatoes, wheat and sweet dates meld over twelve hours into a dark, rich, deeply comforting pot, with the eggs turning creamy and brown.
- Total time
- 760 min
- Servings
- Serves 8
- Difficulty
- Medium
Street food
Pastels (Moroccan-Jewish Fried Meat Pies)
Pastels are golden fried pies of spiced minced-meat filling encased in a tender dough, a staple of Moroccan-Jewish home cooking and holiday tables. The filling — beef or chicken cooked down with onion, parsley and warm spices, sometimes with a hard-boiled egg — is sealed in rounds of dough and fried until crisp and blistered, eaten warm as a starter or snack.
- Total time
- 80 min
- Servings
- Serves 6
- Difficulty
- Advanced
Want to cook these dishes hands-on in Marrakech?
Book a cooking class — start in the spice souk, finish around the table.