Changing up the Flavor Profile: Moroccan Inspired

I wasn’t feeling very inspired when I had to come up with the grocery list and menu for tonight but somehow stumbled upon a Moroccan influenced meal. Menu: grilled steak, carrot and chickpea tagine, and saffron rice.

Oh my goodness this was incredibly tasty and the perfect midweek meal. Lots of delicious flavor and definitely filling and colorful. It rather leaned towards the orange-yellow side of the color wheel, though, if you ask me.

Rei and I pulled this dinner together in less than an hour. Super easy, too (not one of those meals where, even though it takes only an hour, you need sixteen different pans and four pots, plus you need to stir and pay attention at all times, and if your thoughts even stray from the dish for a moment, the whole meal is completely ruined). We managed to stay chill and civilized throughout the entire cooking process, which I count as a win!

I started by chopping an onion and grating some garlic into a bowl.

Rei peeled and chopped carrots into sticks while I measured out the spices and chopped some parsley. These were some massive honking carrots. Look at the one on the cutting board! It was as long as my forearm and as thick as…I dunno. Something really big, I guess?

We loosely followed this recipe. The spices included salt, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Rei heated some olive oil and sauteed the chopped onions (1 med-large onion) and garlic (5 garlic cloves). Specific measurements don’t really matter in this type of dish. Do they matter in any dishes, though? Not really when it comes to cooking. Baking is a little harder to cheat, though.

After a few minutes, Rei added the carrots, spices, and chopped parsley. We added 1/2 cup of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of water. Rei lowered the heat to medium-low and cooked, covered, until the carrots were somewhat soft. The recipe says it will take 25 minutes. It took more like 15. The recipe said it could take up to 25 mins, but I’m not surprised it took shorter. I cut those carrots pretty thin, and when have our kitchen appliances ever followed the recommended cooking times?

Rei then added some honey and the chickpeas ( we put in two 15 oz cans instead of of the 1–2 cups the recipe called for). Rei continued to simmer this until the chickpeas were warmed through. Once this was done, Rei covered it, turned off the heat, and set it aside.

While Rei was working on the carrot/chickpea dish, I brought the steaks to room temperature and made the rub. The recipe called for hanger steak but the market didn’t have any so Zeke chose two beautiful and huge top sirloin steaks. They were perfect.

The rub: 2 TBS harissa (chili past), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground cumin, and 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon. I mixed this up and rubbed it all over the steak and let it sit while Zeke heated the grill.

I found a quick and easy recipe for saffron rice and made it lickety split. We added 3.5 cups of chicken stock to a pot and added 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp saffron threads, and a little bit of lemon juice to the chicken stock. We turned the heat up to high and measured out 2 cups of rice. The recipe called for jasmine rice but we had plain old rice and it worked fine. We added it along with 1/4 tsp of salt to the liquid and brought it up to a boil.

Then we covered it and reduced the heat to low and let it cook for about 12–15 minutes. It was ready about the same time everything else was.

Zeke had the grill on high and it took about 15 minutes (in total for both sides) to cook to perfection. Once cooked, Zeke brought them in and left covered for 5–8 minutes to rest. Once the steak rested, Zeke sliced for serving. Look at those lovelies!

Zeke cooked the steak to perfection.

Et voila! An amazingly tasty and flavorful dinner in less than an hour. I felt like it was well balanced from a plant-based perspective and a solid protein, not to mention the bold but blended flavors. We will be making this again.

Rei? What did you think? This was so quick and easy which was good since we didn’t get started cooking until nearly 7 PM.

I enjoyed this meal a lot! I really liked the change in cuisine, because we are very unfamiliar with this entire flavor profile. I have to say, it was a tad bit on the spicy side, but not exactly unbearable. It was still yummy, though!

Now today will be an exciting day, because I’m going to try my hand at making chocolate truffles. Wish me luck? I’ve done some research and apparently they’re not that hard, which is good. Maybe I’ll try to temper some chocolate too, just because? I dunno. I like chocolate, and I hope my cellmates — oops, I mean my shelter in place housemates — like chocolate too. If not, too bad; I’m making chocolates anyways. Rei, don’t forget to make the brioche buns for tonight’s pulled pork sandwiches. Rei? Rei?-Terri

Well, I’m off! Until next time, ciao, and have a cholertreingyew day!

Rei and Terri :D