Chermoula is a seafood marinade used in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Although it's traditionally used just as a marinade, it's pretty good used in other applications, a spicy mix of garlic, cilantro, olive oil, lemon, chili pepper, and seasonings. It's not unlike chimichurri in Argentina. Often fish or seafood are rolled in chermoula, and then layered in a dish with onions and tomatoes and other ingredients to make a tagine. Stay tuned for a tagine recipe coming soon.
Chermoula
1 large bunch cilantro
1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley
1 small red chili pepper, seeds removed and pepper chopped
1 small garlic glove, minced
1 teaspoon each cumin, coriander, salt
juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
1. Dice the cilantro and parsley leaves as finely as possible. Combine remaining ingredients.
It's a very nice "start" recipe for chermoula. But I don't see garlic in it, or onion. One or the other or both are added, depending on the final use of the marinade.
ReplyDeleteAn other ingredient I see missing is flat leaves parsley. Parsley and coriander go hand in hand in moroccan cuisine.
For excellent north-african cuisine reference cookbook, I suggest one written by a north-african author rather than an american one, even if she lived in Morocco for quite a while as it is the case with Paula Wolfert. Somehow important things get omitted, may be for adaptation to american palate sake?
An excellent book I offer my north-american friends is "The Momo Cookbook: A Gastronomic Journey Through North Africa", by Momo (Mourad) Mazouz.
Check it out, I promise you won't regret it.
I have no interest or ties with the author.
I would have prefered to send you this comment privately, but I didn't find an email address. I hope I'm not offending you...
I love chermoula and use it extensively in my cooking. I'm moroccan. For fish I usually add garlic to the mix, then I warm it slightly (really barely brought to a very hot bath temperature) and let cool before using it. I also always use flat-lefed parlsy in my chermoula mixes.
ReplyDeleteI love you r blog!
Yum! I have recently found some love for cilantro, so looking fwd to trying this. Can I just marinate the fish in ths and bake?
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I’m looking to make some changes in my own eating habits and learning to cook, so I appreciate your insight a lot! Thank you. I recently stumbled upon this blog like I did yours and I thought your readers may appreciate it: http://burisonthecouch.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/food-for-thought/
ReplyDeleteI’ve started to look for blog help more regularly and I think I’m going to add your blog to my list as well. Thanks for the post!
-Amy