05 · Culinary Experiences
The Art of Moroccan Cooking
The Art of
Moroccan Cooking
A Marrakech cooking class experience is the easiest full day to add to any private trip. Moroccan cuisine is one of the great culinary traditions of the world. It is a living tradition built from a thousand years of Berber, Arab, Andalusian and Jewish influences, where the spices are ground by hand, the bread is baked in wood fired clay ovens and the tagine has been simmering on a low charcoal fire since early morning. Learning to cook Moroccan food in a riad garden kitchen with a woman who has prepared these recipes every day of her life is one of the most rewarding things you can do in Marrakech.
The morning begins in the spice souks of Marrakech, where your personal guide takes you through the lanes to the stalls that the local families use. You select the saffron, the ras el hanout, the preserved lemons and the fresh coriander. You see the difference between cumin from Morocco and cumin imported from elsewhere. You smell the difference between fresh and dried rosewater. This part of the experience, the souk before the cooking, is itself something most visitors to Morocco never see.
From the souk you enter a beautiful riad garden kitchen where the cook is already at work. Nothing is demonstrated and then repeated, you do everything yourself, from washing and preparing the vegetables to grinding the spices in a stone mortar, shaping the pastilla parcels and placing the tagine on the charcoal fire. At the end of the morning you sit down together in the garden to eat the full meal you have prepared: tagine, three Moroccan salads, fresh bread from the clay oven and a pastilla, with mint tea poured from height in the traditional way. You take printed recipe cards home with you in English and French.
What You Will Do on This Cooking Class Experience
- Morning visit to the Marrakech spice souks to select every ingredient with your guide, visiting the stalls that local families use
- Hands on preparation of a slow cooked Moroccan tagine: the spice blend, the layering, the timing and the finishing
- Three Moroccan salads prepared from scratch: zaalouk, taktouka and carrot salad with cumin and preserved lemon
- Pastilla preparation: the striking sweet savoury Moroccan pie with pigeon or chicken, almonds, eggs and cinnamon in warqa pastry
- Fresh bread baked in a traditional clay oven: you shape the dough and place it in the oven yourself
- Moroccan mint tea ceremony: learning the three pour technique, the history of Moroccan tea culture and how to prepare the mint correctly
- Full lunch in the riad garden: everything you have cooked, eaten together at a beautifully set table
- Printed recipe cards in English and French to take home, with all the spice ratios and cooking times written out in full
- Optional: a visit to a traditional hammam in the afternoon to complete the full Marrakech experience
How a Marrakech Cooking Class Actually Runs
A Cooking Class Experience with us starts at nine in the morning and finishes at about half past two, which sounds long until you are in it. The first hour is the souk. The second is the walk back through the medina with your basket, past the bakery where the neighbourhood brings its dough, past the man who does nothing but grind spices. You arrive at the riad at about eleven and the kitchen is already warm.
From there it is hands on. You are not watching a demonstration from a stool. You sit at a low table with the dada, you peel, you chop, you burn your fingers slightly on the bread, you taste as you go and you adjust. The tagine goes on the charcoal at around noon so that it has two full hours at a low temperature, which is the whole secret and the one thing most Cooking Class Experience recipes at home get wrong.
Lunch is at half past one in the garden, and it is a real lunch, not tasting portions. Most people do not need dinner afterwards.
What Is Included and What It Costs
The price covers the guide for the souk, all ingredients, the dada who teaches, the use of the riad kitchen and garden, lunch with soft drinks and mint tea, and the printed recipe cards. Transport to and from your riad in Marrakech is included. Alcohol is not, because most riad kitchens do not serve it.
We run it as a private session, so the price depends on the number of you rather than on a per seat rate, and a family of four pays less per person than a couple. We quote in euros or dirhams, whichever you prefer, and you pay on the day or in advance, not both.
The Best Months, and the Ones to Avoid
March to May and September to November are the comfortable months. The souk is bearable in the late morning, the garden is pleasant at lunch and the produce is at its best: broad beans and artichokes in spring, quinces and pomegranates in autumn.
July and August are hot enough that we move the whole thing earlier, starting at eight, and we skip the souk walk in the middle of the day. December to February is cold in the mornings but the kitchen is the warmest room in Marrakech and the winter vegetables are excellent. During Ramadan we do not run the Cooking Class Experience, because the dadas are fasting and it would not be right to ask them to cook and taste all morning.
Who This Suits, and What to Bring
This suits people who like to eat and are curious about how, more than it suits trained cooks looking for technique. Children from about eight are welcome and usually end up making the bread, which is the best job. Vegetarians are easy to accommodate and we do it often. Coeliac and severe nut allergies we can work around, but tell us when you book rather than on the morning, because the shopping changes.
Bring closed shoes for the souk, something you do not mind getting turmeric on, and a hat if it is summer. Aprons are provided. Leave large bags at your riad. You will go home with the recipe cards, and most people go home with a small bag of ras el hanout from the stall we use, which is the one souvenir from a Cooking Class Experience that actually gets used.
They Travelled With Us
Mohammed had the talent to make us approach beautiful sites, far from places a little too touristy. He tells us with passion, humor and knowledge about his beautiful country. A true storyteller.
My 2nd trek with Authentic Travel Tour [now Afsou Travels Morocco] and with Mohamed, this time at Toubkal. Mohamed is a great guide, kind, very professional and attentive to all. Everything is perfectly organized and the scenery is beautiful. I recommend 100%.
Many thanks to our wonderful guide Mohamed and all his team for this wonderful week. We will have wonderful memories for a long time thanks to their warm welcome, their dedicated commitment and their kindness.
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- Marrakech, Morocco
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