Cafe Morocco

I prepared an entire Moroccan feast and enjoyed the ease of use with this cookbook. All ingredients are readily available at most supermarkets, and the combination of spices and their scents while cooking is beautiful. Simple, healthy and delicious recipes, along with colorful illustrations makes this a wonderful addition to my storehouse of cooking books. Highly recommended if you are adventurous in your cooking!

Great recipes.

The colours used in this book are what first attracted me to pick it up. The photography by Jeremy Hopley is very captivating.The book covers recipes for street food in Morocco. So the foods themselves are easy to prepare. Most recipes have less than 6 ingredients, so its easy to throw a dish together with ingredients in your grocery cupboard or refrigerator.Primarily targetted at a British audience, I find myself being more generous with the chilli powder than recommended in the book. But its been great at getting me to use some of the spice mixes I picked up on a recent trip to Morocco.Do not let that scare you. A majority of the recipes can be prepared without searching for exotic ingredients.

While living in Morocco for six months, I learned to cook with my host mother. When I returned home I began to look for a cookbook with which to recreate my experiences. I hoped to find something that included both simple staples and more elaborate recipes that show off the potential complexity of Moroccan flavoring. I looked through a lot of cookbooks both here and in France (where there is a large Maghrebi community), and finally decided that this book was the best of the lot."Cafe Morocco" is suitable for both novices and those more familiar with Moroccan cooking. Many other cookbooks focus too much on lush photography of Moroccan souqs and too little on the recipes. This book centers on the food without sacrificing aesthetics, and presents an accurate, tasty interpretation of Moroccan cuisine. In addition to being filled with gorgeous, colorful photographs, the book is well laid-out, with clearly marked ingredient lists and simple instructions. At the front of the book are descriptions of ingredients essential to Moroccan cooking, and a brief discussion of cooking equipment and techniques.Included are several basic bread recipes and a fairly large selection of tajines and couscouses, based mainly on lamb or fish. Helou also presents an unusually wide variety of vegetable-based side dishes that are so essential to Moroccan meals, but are often overlooked in restaurants and cookbooks. Consequently, this book is an excellent purchase for vegetarians (like myself) who love Moroccan food but can't eat meals centered on meat. Although the dessert section is a bit thin, it includes most basic dishes and a number of drinks. Most importantly, there are instructions on how to prepare fresh mint tea, the quintessential Moroccan gustatory and cultural experience.

This is a beautiful and useful book, simplicity itself, that is written in a way that is as poetic, soulful, simple, and unpretentious as the cuisine it explores. The book instructed me not only how to prepare these dishes technically, but also how to appreciate their profound artistic and culinary value. As a great amateur of all things Middle-Eastern, this book is one of my most prized posessions.

I borrowed this book from my local library and enjoyed it so much that I purchased my own copy. Every recipe is tasty and not very difficult to put together. I own quite a few cookbooks, and this is one I refer to over and over. What a find!

I love this cookbook series!If you have ever had the desire to try to cook Moroccan, start here. The photographs are lovely and informative. Truly a tasty book!

I sent this book to my Mother, who says it has arrived grubby/dirty so it wasn't as described in good condition.