Perhaps the one thing that best sums up Moroccan cooking is the king of spices: ras el hanout, which literally translates as 'the head of the shop'. And it’s not even a single ingredient, but consists of 27 or more different ingredients, which trace their origins from all over the medieval world. Each spice trader and chef will mix up his own creation: no two are ever exactly the same. But a typical mixture will usually include cumin, coriander, pepper, cinnamon, garlic, mace, harmal (African rue), nutmeg, sweet chilli, ginger, star anise, cardamom, thyme, different varieties of rose petal, salt, fenugreek, orris root ... a little of everything, and then some magic for good measure.
There's an old Berber story for how ras el hanout came into being. Once there was a tyrannical sultan who made his errand runners' lives miserable with his overbearing demands and his cruel punishments if they failed to carry out those demands swiftly and perfectly. One day he sent one of these poor slaves to the market for spices with which to flavour his daily couscous. But the poor man got delayed by being forced also to run an errand for the sultan’s chief wife, and by the time he reached the spice trader he was out of breath and almost babbling. “What do you need?” the spice trader asked him kindly, seeing the state he was in. The poor man could hardly get the words out. So many spices and so little time! “Please, sidi, just give me a little of everything,” he begged desperately.
So, taking him at his word, the spice trader pinched the top off the head of each of his tidy pyramids of spice and from the top of every jar of his most special ingredients; but instead of packing each one into the separate paper packet the functionary was expecting, he handed the sweating, trembling man a large pouch containing the myriad ingredients all mixed up together.
When the slave brought this to the cook, the cook flew into a panic. “What have you done? How am I to separate out this mess and flavour the sauce the way the sultan likes it?” But knowing that both their heads would be at risk if the sultan did not get his couscous exactly on time, he offered up a quick prayer to Allah, threw a good pinch of the mixture into the sauce and trusted to divine intervention.
When at last, and barely a second late the couscous was served up, the sultan inhaled the aromatic vapour emanating from his favourite dish and wrinkled his nose. “This smells different!” he growled, glaring at the cook and the slave, who exchanged terrified looks, and the backs of their necks prickled coldly as if feeling the kiss of the sultan’s sword.
The sultan took one mouthful, then another, then another. Then at last he proclaimed, “This is the finest couscous I have ever tasted!” (At which, the slave’s knees buckled in relief and he fell headlong, thus instigating the centuries-long habit of making a humble obeisance to a sultan.
And from that day forth the sultan demanded the same flavour in his daily couscous. Which was something of a nightmare, because replicating the exact quantities of the ingredients of a ras el hanout mix demands the skills of a master spicer.
Nowadays, it's not so difficult. You can get some sort of ras el hanout mix in most supermarkets and specialist food stores. And you can even grind and mix your own - after all, it's all a matter of personal taste.
You can mix up your own ras el hanout too, to your own taste. Here’s a basic version, but you can vary it in any way that suits you: for ras el hanout is all things to all men, and women:
Abdel’s ras el-hanout
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons turmeric powder
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons powdered coriander
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of ground cloves
a pinch of Chinese fivespice or aniseed
And if you can get hold of it, a pinch of powdered rose petals.
You can use ras el hanout in all sorts of ways: dropped into a sauce at almost the last moment in order to impart a delicate je-ne-sais-quoi, or in a marinade to imbue the meat with a deeper, more aromatic flavour.