Mourad: New Moroccan Hardcover – 31 Oct. 2011

This is a wonderful book. Not just a cookery book, but a story as well. The photos are wonderful, recipes are great, if a little complicated sometimes. I started with the lemons.......!It is a book to come back to time after time, to be transported to another world of senses and smells.

This is a 'fine dining' Moroccan cook book, great recipes and it is very detailed. Ideal for the serious foodie.. Lovely stories about the authors childhood too.

Excellent book & fast delivery from Amazon Uk

This is a well put together book and Mourad's passion for his culture and his cooking comes through. I enjoyed reading the storyline and found the information under Cooking from memory, Before you start and the heading "seven things" very useful. However I was disappointed in the recipes.I was looking for more traditional Moroccan recipes ( Perhaps I should have sought out books with more traditional recipes in them).For those who wish to cook in a more modern way this is an excellent book.I am pleased that I bought the book and I will refer to the beginning of the book a lot. who knows I may even try a few recipes

I have lived and cooked in Morocco for over twenty years. I bought Mourad's book when it first came out, and it is by far the best Moroccan cookbook I have come across. so much so that I have gifted copies many times.

At last a cook book with a difference. It gives not just recipies but ideas of how to change them and totaly different ways of using the spice mixes. It challenges you to explore what can be done.

Having bought recently a Tagine dish, I wanted a recipe book to cook my first tagine. However, I have to say that I have been really disappointed with this book. Its too complicated and the recipes are not straight forward. I have returned the book and bought another one instead. I hope this one will be much better for a novice like myself.

Ein Buch nur für geübte Köche! Interessante Mischung von Tradition und moderne französische Küche.

I enjoyed reading his story, the illustrations and the photos. Even if you don't cook, but like Moroccan influence, it's a great book. As for using it as a cookbook, I am not the most patient or great cook. I have not cooked from it yet. I find it's a book to be read first. I will definitely use it soon. He gives you info on where to get the ingredients that might be hard to find

Mourad: New Moroccan is essential reading for the international cook who has moved beyond recipes, but wants to participate in a modern conversation about food, and channel the techniques and thought processes of one of our most gifted and visionary chefs. Today that conversation includes other self-taught-with-influences chefs like Heston Blumenthal, or Chad Robertson of the Tartine bakery.For me the first "conceptual" books in this vein were Tom Colicchio's "Think Like a Chef" and Paul Bertolli's "Cooking by Hand". Perhaps one recipe from Colicchio or Bertolli has made our regular rotation, but we haven't opened a can of tomatoes since Colicchio's book came out and we simplified and fixed his tomato conserve, to freeze each summer's crop. We grind our own flour for everthing, ever since Bertolli's book came out and we simplified and fixed his fresh pasta recipes. I expect a similarly profound influence from Lahlou's book. To be honest, I want to continue to make fairly traditional Moroccan dishes, but employing modern techniques and available ingredients. I don't need to convince restaurant diners to melt their credit cards over beautiful skyscraper plates, but the thinking that goes into these more formal dishes will be invaluable for executing the classics. As a rule I reject books about traditional cuisines that are too interpretative, including various other Moroccan tomes that I've seen, but Mourad: New Moroccan is a keeper.The first, biographical introduction is a riveting, tears and laughter affair, an account of a life growing up around food in his traditional family home in the Marrakesh medina. One comes to understand why he shaved his head on his grandfather's passing. (And yes, the book offers several opportunities to confirm this, but no matter.) We're all vulnerable to the food-as-religion idea that adopting exotic, traditional food practices will unlock the secrets of the universe. I thought that I had fully recovered from this conceit, with an honest focus on "it's the ingredients!" when this introduction sucker-punched me. Now the 1970's Moroccan medina is another mythical place lost to time for me. Yet at the same time Mourad is completely about "it's the ingredients!"The second, fundamentals introduction may come partly as review for anyone who's been following these other books. What a relief to have measurements also in grams, but have you joined the inner circle of home cooks with two digital scales, one for precise small measurements? And here is another chef, part of a modern conversation but not a molecular gastronomist, who considers xanthan gum to be a legitimate and natural ingredient. I didn't know that Israeli couscous was extruded. I've made fregola from scratch; apparently, he doesn't know that fregola is hand-rubbed. That was the first point I could score in a 55 page onslaught of information.The strength here is spices. Even if one has 50 spices bought bulk from Vik's, the unnamed Berkeley source that started Mourad down this road, and knows to refresh one's stocks, to pan-roast before freshly grinding, first for Indian cooking and then for everything, there is much to learn here about spices. I love his account of a vendor's description of the ideal ras el hanout, followed by the realization that the whole spice mixture for sale was missing most of the exotics, all as setup for Mourad's recipe that includes various exotics. It has 23 ingredients including grains of paradise, and looks incredible. I have variant recipes available to me for most of the other blends, but in every case his blend looks superior, and worth the trouble.I didn't know how rare it was to make harissa from scratch; he gives a good recipe, and homemade harissa makes a profound difference. This is a bit like Thai cooking, as no one in Thailand goes to the trouble we go to here, when an open market with prepared pastes is steps away. I was in stitches when Jacques Pepin makes an appearance in the section on warqa, to announce he's actually figured out how to make the stuff. I thought I had Jacques pegged. Who knew!Chicken with preserved lemons and green olives is one of the top dishes of all time, and should be in anyone's rotation. The Momo cookbook version is one of the better ones, though the traditional step of optionally blanching the olives just robs the final dish of flavor. Here, the fundamental difference is the use of duck fat. A great idea, ducks aren't prevalent in Morocco but all traditional cuisines used to render their own fats as part of using and respecting the entire animal. Various lards (pork, duck, goose) should be home fridge staples, and one's Chinese cooking can benefit enormously from tossing out the wok, and using small amounts of flavorful lard in a high-end nonstick pan. Same here, skip Momo's olive oil and just use less fat, but use fat.It wouldn't surprise me if the only recipes I adopt are the spice blends and the basics, as I return to more traditional Moroccan recipes with a reinvigorated sense of purpose. One can really cook a cuisine when one can improvise and pass off the results as traditional, and Mourad's thinking throughout his recipes could help anyone make this transition. I take his recipes in this spirit, improvisations appropriate to a restaurant, but perhaps not to my table. Nevertheless, just as one pulls only tiny pieces from "The French Laundry" to apply at home (big pot boiling, lobster confit in butter), Mourad: New Moroccan is an essential read.

I bought this last year because we have an annual Valentines dinner and this last February was the first one since missing the last because of Covid. I decided to use the theme of “North African Cuisine” and needed to test lots of recipes and this book looked like it would have possibilities. Well, what a find! I did several recipes from it and they were all a hit! We were a group of 24 and I was nervous because half of them are not that adventurous…..was I wrong! He has a Quick Harissa which those who like hot sauce said it was better than sriracha or any other hot sauce. The beauty of it was that it was puréed and I could fill small pipettes (also from Amazon) held in shot glasses at every plate which could be dispensed on the dishes as desired. Other recipes from the book that I did: Rosemary Almonds, Chili and Lime Almonds, Tomato Jam (yum!), Grilled Kefta (all eaten), Date Leather with salad greens (impressive!), Grilled Flatbread, Short Rib Tangia (several wanted the recipe!) and Yogurt Mousse (delicious dribbled with Grand Marnier - acceptable since none of us were muslim)I am keeping this wonderful book and plan on trying many other recipes. Mourad has a restaurant in San Francisco, which is about 3 hours from my hometown and I now hope we can plan a weekend trip there to visit the restaurant.GET THIS BOOK!

Much information. Very instructive and also attractive (including Mourad himself...) Classic recipes, clearly family inspired and love of food. For foodies but mostly for people curious about food, ethnicities in food and ingredients. A simple thing makes a difference. Mourad conveys well his pride of being Moroccan. His generosity with information and sensation are inspiring to say the least.Classic recipes with a touch of personality.