Maryam El Yaakoubi,
Executive Sous Chef
at The Mercure Grand
Jebel Hafeet, prepared
a few special dishes for the Friday
evening buffet at Le Belvedere, and
she let me have an advanced tasting.
Mariyam is Moroccan, so she was
eager for me to sample the traditional
cuisine of her homeland.
Having been to Morocco, and eaten
my way through much of the national
menu, I recognized the dishes
immediately. Tajines were the focus
of our meal. Chef Maryam prepared
lamb, chicken and couscous tajines in
addition to a selection of Moroccan
salads. Tajine refers to both a North
African stew that's slow-cooked
for hours and the clay, cone-shaped
pot in which it's cooked (similar
to tandoori dishes, which are slowcooked
in a clay tandoor).
I began with the giant platter of
assorted salads. There were several
variations on the green salad,
including something quite similar to
a typical Mediterranean salad, with
including something quite similar to
a typical Mediterranean salad, with
cucumber, capsicum, oil, vinegar,
onion, tomato and lettuce. One of the
salads featured tuna, another corn,
another mushrooms. By far the most
original and tasty, however, was the
zaalouk. Grilled aubergine is the
centerpiece of zaalouk, but the various
ingredients were so well-orchestrated
that one flavor didn't predominate
over the others. Tomato, garlic, oil
and aubergine in perfect harmony,
with dashes of cumin, paprika and
parsley. It can be eaten on its own or,
better yet, used as a dip for bread.
The first tajine I tried was the
Chicken with Lemon Confit. The
chicken was lean, flavorful and
supple. Cooked with handfuls of
large green olives, the meat was
coated with a thin blanket of oil,
providing a pleasant texture and
consistency. The dish was peppered
with small lemon wedges, which I
ate whole. They were tart, as you'd
expect, but with a vaguely sweet
finish that brought an unexpected
depth to the flavor.
I love couscous, but it can be as dry
as the desert from which it originates,
like eating a bowl of sand. Chef
Maryam's Couscous 7 Vegetables,
however, was moist and delicate. The
dish consisted of chick pea, carrot,
marrow, onion, capsicum, squash,
artichoke and presumably a vegetable
or two I couldn't identify. This was
the most savory of the tajines, though
the saltiness was correctly balanced
against the sweet and acidic elements.
I finished with the lamb tajine. It was
prepared with prunes and slivered
almonds. The most basic and critical
rule of cooking is to work with food
that's fresh and of high quality. This
is so much more important than using
nineteen obscure ingredients and
cutting-edge culinary techniques.
Lamb, prune and almond: simple
but perfect. There was nothing
extraneous here; every ingredient
was necessary, each was cooked
well, and they all complemented one
another. The lamb was of the highest
quality. It had enough fat to stay
moist, tender and tasty, but not so
much that it made you feel ill. The
texture was pristine and, like a good
beef bourguignon, the meat broke
apart at the slightest touch of a fork.
The lamb was succulent and didn't
have the gamey subtext that can turn
people away. Despite its impeccable
preparation, it was the candied prunes
that really held the dish together.
They were sweet yet also savory and
smoky, with a robust and complex
body that blended quite well with
the more subtle taste of almond. This
stunning lamb tajine was a great way
to finish our meal.
