The chicken tajine required a lot of preliminary chopping: onions, garlic, carrots, zucchini, red and green (hot) peppers, potatoes, ginger, lemon grass (citronelle), and pickled lemon (citron confit). The chicken pieces were seared first, then removed. I added the chopped onions and carrots, followed by the peppers and the garlic, ginger, lemon grass and pickled lemon. The chicken is returned to the pan. Sprinkle everything with flour, add cumin and ground ginger. Some lemon juice and white wine are added and enough water to cover the meat and vegetables. After 20 minutes of cooking, potatoes are added and then the zucchini and finally green olives. This is more or less the recipe. I liked the flavors of the tajine; the kids thought it was too spicy.
You could also leave out the potatoes and then serve it over couscous. Lamb can also be substituted for the chicken.
The "dessert" part of the session was fun to make. I started with making a basic pastry--flour, egg, butter, pinch of salt. To this I added a couple of teaspoons of "orange blossom water" (eau de fleur d'oranger). This is common to Moroccan cuisine and flavors the pastry. I then made the almond filling: toasted and ground (not finely) almonds mixed with butter, sugar, and again orange blossom water. This filling was spooned onto squares of pastry dough which were then rolled and pinched to form a type of "horn" or crescent. Baked for 15 minutes at 350 degrees, they were then sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Emily said that the authentic recipe would be to roll the pastries in honey when they are removed from the oven and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. This makes for a super sweet treat, typical of Moroccan cuisine. Since she is not a sweet tooth, we skipped the honey. They are still very good, perfect with a cup of mint tea.
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