Moroccan cuisine reflects centuries of Berber, Arab, Moorish, and Mediterranean influences. Slow-cooked tagines, aromatic spice blends like ras el hanout, and a tradition of hospitality centered on food define one of Africa's most celebrated culinary cultures.
Play today's Moroccan puzzle →Each day a mystery Moroccan dish is chosen. Guess any Moroccandish and you'll receive color-coded feedback on five attributes:
You have 8 guesses. Use the clues to narrow down the answer.
Slow-braised lamb with preserved lemons, olives, and warming spices, cooked in a conical clay pot.
The tagine's conical lid is designed to trap and return steam to the base, allowing the stew to cook slowly with very little added liquid.
Hand-rolled semolina grains steamed to lightness and served with a rich stew of meat and vegetables.
In Morocco, couscous is traditionally eaten on Fridays after midday prayers, and is considered a dish of hospitality and family gathering.
A flaky warqa pastry filled with spiced chicken, eggs, and almonds, dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon.
The deliberate sweet-savory combination — sugar and cinnamon on top of a meat filling — is a hallmark of ancient Andalusian-influenced Moroccan cooking.
A hearty tomato and lentil soup with chickpeas, fresh herbs, and broken vermicelli.
Harira is the traditional soup eaten to break the fast each evening during Ramadan, typically served alongside dates and sweet chebakia pastries.
A whole lamb rubbed with smen, cumin, and salt, then slow-roasted until the meat falls from the bone.
Mechoui is a centerpiece dish at celebrations and festivals, and is traditionally eaten with hands, tearing the meat directly from the carcass.
A cooked salad of roasted eggplant and tomatoes, crushed with cumin, paprika, garlic, and olive oil.
Unlike raw salads, zaalouk is always served at room temperature after the vegetables have been cooked and mashed together, developing a deep, smoky flavor.
A square-shaped, multilayered flatbread made from semolina and wheat flour, folded with butter and cooked on a griddle.
The layered texture of msemen comes from folding and stretching the dough repeatedly with butter — the same technique used in French croissants.
Spiced ground beef meatballs simmered in a cumin-paprika tomato sauce, finished with eggs cracked on top.
The eggs are cracked directly into the simmering sauce at the end and cooked just until set, so each diner gets a runny yolk to break into the sauce.
Whole fish marinated and stuffed with chermoula — a blend of cilantro, parsley, lemon, cumin, and paprika — then grilled or baked.
Chermoula is Morocco's most versatile sauce, used as a marinade, stuffing, and condiment for fish, and varies by region in its balance of herbs and spices.
Yeasted semolina pancakes covered in hundreds of tiny holes, eaten with honey and melted butter.
Beghrir are cooked on only one side — the hundreds of holes that appear on the surface allow steam to escape from below, cooking the top without flipping.
Small triangular pastries of thin warqa dough filled with spiced meat, seafood, or almonds and honey, then fried.
Warqa, the paper-thin dough used for briouats and bastilla, is traditionally made by dabbing a wet ball of dough repeatedly onto a hot pan — a highly skilled technique.
Gunpowder green tea steeped with fresh spearmint and generous amounts of sugar, poured from a height to create froth.
Pouring the tea from a significant height is not just theatrical — it aerates the tea and creates a frothy top that is considered a sign of a well-made glass.
A sweet and savory lamb tagine slow-braised with honey, raisins, almonds, and ras el hanout.
Mrouzia is traditionally prepared at Eid al-Adha using the sacrificial lamb, and its heavy spicing with ras el hanout was historically also used to preserve the meat.
Torn pieces of msemen flatbread soaked in a rich chicken and lentil stew flavored with fenugreek and ras el hanout.
Rfissa is traditionally prepared for a new mother in the days following childbirth, as fenugreek is believed in Moroccan tradition to aid postpartum recovery.
A flower-shaped sesame and honey pastry flavored with orange blossom water, fried and immediately coated in warm honey.
Chebakia is eaten almost exclusively during Ramadan, served alongside harira to break the fast — the two are so intertwined they are rarely seen apart during the month.
A thick, creamy purée of dried split fava beans or peas, drizzled with olive oil, cumin, and paprika.
Bissara is one of Morocco's most affordable street foods and is sold by vendors early in the morning as a warming winter breakfast, particularly in Fes and Chefchaouen.
Steamed vermicelli or couscous mounded high and decorated with powdered sugar, cinnamon, and toasted almonds.
Seffa is typically served as a sweet course between the main dish and dessert at wedding banquets and large celebrations.
Golden fried potato fritters seasoned with cumin, parsley, and garlic, served with harissa.
Makouda are a popular street snack stuffed into a sandwich roll with harissa and preserved lemons — one of Morocco's most common on-the-go meals.
Lamb slow-cooked in a clay amphora with preserved lemon, saffron, and smen, traditionally placed in the embers of a hammam furnace.
Tangia is called the 'bachelor's dish' in Marrakech — single men would prepare the sealed clay pot in the morning, drop it at the hammam to cook all day in the furnace ashes, and collect it ready to eat at night.
Chicken pieces slow-braised with preserved lemons, green olives, onions, saffron, and ginger in a conical clay pot.
Preserved lemons — a defining ingredient — are made by packing whole lemons in salt for weeks until fermented, transforming them into a deeply savory, intensely aromatic condiment quite unlike fresh lemon.
A cooked salad of roasted tomatoes and green peppers, slowly reduced with cumin, paprika, garlic, and olive oil.
Taktouka is always served warm or at room temperature, never cold, and is traditionally scooped with bread rather than eaten with a fork.
