A low round brass table with a jar of green chermoula, a bowl of red matbucha with torn flatbread, a jar of preserved lemons, a dish of ras el hanout, wrinkled black olives, a silver mint tea pot and a tea glass on a zellige tile floor

Moroccan Pantry Guide: Chermoula to Mint Tea

Published 9 Sep 20265 min read

Filed under Savoury Spreads & Dips New York Shuk Villa Jerada Morocco

Moroccan cooking has a reputation for patience. But much of the cuisine's flavor lives in a small set of things that keep: an herb marinade, a cooked relish, salted lemons, a spice blend, cured olives. With those jars on hand, a weeknight Moroccan dinner is quick work. This is that pantry, jar by jar, and three dishes to make from it.

Chermoula

Chermoula is a Moroccan herb-and-spice marinade, traditionally for fish and now for chicken too: fresh herbs pounded with garlic, cumin, paprika, a little chile and olive oil, sometimes with saffron or preserved lemon. Fish is rubbed with it and grilled or baked, and it is good on roasted vegetables, chickpeas and a fried egg. Villa Jerada, a Seattle company, makes a ready chermoula (shop Villa Jerada Chermoula). Its founder, the Moroccan chef Mehdi Boujrada, started out importing from family and friends at home, among them saffron growers and olive oil makers.

Matbucha

Matbucha is a North African cooked salad, tomatoes, peppers and garlic simmered slowly until they collapse into a thick, concentrated relish, eaten cold or warm with bread. The name means "cooked salad" in Arabic. Jewish immigrants from Morocco and elsewhere in North Africa brought it to Israel, where it became a staple. New York Shuk's matbucha with olives and mint (shop New York Shuk Matbucha) comes from a Brooklyn company founded by Ron and Leetal Arazi. Ron grew up in a Jewish Moroccan-Lebanese family in Israel.

Cold, matbucha goes on a mezze table. Warm, it is the base for the shakshuka below, and the snack dinner guide builds an evening around it.

Preserved lemon

Preserved lemons are lemons cut in quarters lengthwise without cutting through the base, packed with salt, covered with lemon juice and left in a cool, dark cupboard for about two weeks. Only the peel is used: the pulp and membrane come out, and the rind is rinsed of excess salt. The rind goes into lemon chicken, salad dressings and Moroccan tagines, and a teaspoon chopped fine lifts a pot of beans, a bowl of couscous or a dish of olives. Make them at home and wait two weeks, or open a jar of Les Moulins Mahjoub preserved lemons (shop Les Moulins Mahjoub Preserved Lemons).

Ras el hanout and the spice cupboard

Ras el hanout means "head of the shop," the merchant's top-shelf blend. There is no fixed recipe: every cook and spice seller has their own, and a blend can run to dozens of spices. A pinch in a pot of chickpeas or lentils seasons the whole pot.

A Moroccan spice cupboard also holds cumin, sweet paprika, cinnamon, dried chile and saffron. Taliouine, in the south, and a neighboring town grew 90 percent of Morocco's saffron, according to a 2018 AFP report. The guide to how spices are harvested follows cinnamon, pepper and turmeric from the plant to the jar. For cumin, Burlap & Barrel's Wild Mountain Cumin comes as whole seed (shop Burlap & Barrel Wild Mountain Cumin). For a sour red spice from further east in the Mediterranean, see how to use sumac.

Harissa

UNESCO recognizes the making of harissa as part of Tunisia's cultural heritage: sun-dried chiles ground with garlic, coriander and salt. When the jar is empty, a fruity hot sauce from the hot sauce guide stands in.

Olives and argan

Morocco is among the world's leading olive oil producers. For table olives, start with the olives guide. Argan oil, extracted from the fruit of a tree endemic to southwestern Morocco, is used in cooking and in festive dishes. It also goes into amlou, a spread of almonds, argan oil and honey eaten with bread at breakfast.

Mint tea

Morocco's mint tea is Chinese green tea, often called gunpowder, brewed with fresh mint and sugar, poured back and forth from a height into small glasses until it foams. Offering it is central to Moroccan hospitality. Gunpowder green tea brewed loose, a fistful of mint, sugar to taste and a pour from as high as you dare is the whole recipe.

Three quick dishes from the jars

Shakshuka. A jar of matbucha warmed in a skillet, two eggs cracked in, covered until the whites set, a scatter of parsley, bread for the yolk.

Chermoula chickpeas. A can of chickpeas drained and warmed in olive oil, a heaped spoon of chermoula stirred through, a squeeze of lemon, a spoon of chopped preserved lemon rind, olives on the side, bread.

Chermoula fish. A fillet of any white fish spread with chermoula, sliced tomato and a few olives around it, twelve minutes in a hot oven, preserved lemon over the top. Couscous or bread alongside.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com.