Orange Blossom & Honey: Magical Moroccan Recipes from the Souks to the Sahara

I found this book quite disappointing as a cookbook, left me wondering if the author really does cook, or if perhaps this was written by two people, one doing the travel story and the other slapping together some recipes.

The stories and descriptions of various cities and regions in Morocco are wonderful, as are the accompanying photographs. The recipes themselves don't quite come up to snuff. They're a combination of exotic names and pictures, and rather mundane preparations -- I began wondering whether the author thinks using cumin magically makes a dish wonderfully special and particularly Moroccan.

Take for example the recipe for Artichoke and Beef Tagine (I prefer the spelling tajine): sounds wonderful, right? But what you get is a recipe where you slow-cook some beef with onions, preserved lemons, ginger, black pepper, and saffron. That's a tajine?

Instead I started with a recipe from "Mediterranean Hot and Spicy" by A. Kremezi (out of print, but you can find a used copy), and prepared a lovely fragrant tajine that was much more satisfying than travelogue photos.

It's not that the book has zero value: it suggests recipes that could be the starting point for creative ventures in the kitchen. The Berber frittata for instance (eggs, olives, tomatoes, hot peppers, spices, cilantro, cheese) looks like something I'd enjoy preparing and eating. But there just aren't enough of these recipes for me to make this one of my go to cookbooks.

I absolutely LOVE this cookbook. It is filled with gorgeous photos and an excellent selection of recipes, most of which offer a modern take on traditional Moroccan cuisine. The flavors just jump off the pages and every recipe screams "make me!" Okay, maybe not the lamb's liver ones so much, but pretty much everything else.

The first recipes I tried which, alone, are worth the puzzlingly low price of this book, are:
-- Chicken, Preserved Lemon & Olive Salad (in my photo) - an absolute, hit-it-out-of-the-park salad of broiled, marinated chicken thigh slices atop sliced fennel, red onion, and chickpeas. The aroma that filled the kitchen while the chicken was broiling was amazing. This salad easily ranks as one of the best salads I've ever, ever made and became an instant favorite in my house. This is the kind of dish that will have people begging for the recipe. Seriously delish.
-- Good Morning Marrakesh Orange & Dates - this turned out to be an absolutely lovely and different way to top my morning yogurt.
-- Chermoula Spiced Chicken - I cheated with this a little, using chicken parts instead of roasting a whole chicken, and had great success. The separate recipe for the chermoula uses readily available ingredients. It is a flavor explosion. If you are looking for an entirely new and delicious way of making roast chicken, this could be it.

The directions are so clearly written and easy enough to follow that even an inexperienced cook would get much enjoyment out of making these recipes. There are very easy recipes with which to wet your feet before diving into the more complex ones, but really none of the recipes is that complex, except in terms of flavor.

There are ingredients specific to Moroccan food that might not be standard pantry items for most, but can be found in most specialty shops. I can pretty much guarantee that anything purchased for one of the recipes here will end up being used for many more. Ingredients such as z'atar, harissa and ras al hanout (meaning top shelf, best in the house - and for good reason) are popping up in Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, if not regular supermarkets.

Preserved lemons are still hard to find, although one wonders why, because they are such a great addition to so many dishes. They are not difficult to make (the author provides an easy recipe that is more clearly written than any other recipe I've used to make these) but do require a little forethought because they must be made at least a month ahead of time. Trader Joe's used to carry them and Kalustyan's in NYC has them, but they are easy and cheap to make, so why buy them? I predict they will start becoming more widely available as more cooks realize the flavor they add and how versatile they are.

Bottom Line: I was expecting this book to be interesting and that I would learn a bit more about a cuisine that I know very little about beyond tagines, but it turned out to be one of the most appealing cookbooks I've read this year. I'm looking forward to trying many more of the recipes. The flavors are intoxicating and the recipes are so, so good!

I read this book from cover to cover and most recipes seem very healthy to me but they include many ingredients and lots of spice and other aromatics.

This is mostly a straight up recipe book with only an intro story and a descriptive paragraph preceding each recipe. There are many recipes that call for ingredients not normally in my cabinet such as preserved lemons, chermoula paste, harissa, etc. Nevertheless, I found several I could make with what I had on hand.

I decided to make the Harira Soup because it looked delicious and wholesome. There were 22 ingredients in this recipe but only 21 for me since I left out the cumin seeds as I dislike that spice immensely. I attached a photo of most of the ingredients in this recipe. The soup came out absolutely delicious. It was very aromatic with a blend of wonderful flavors. I would definitely make this again and again and again (see last picture).

This book also includes desserts, salads, etc. There is only one chapter dedicated to cooking in a tagine but unfortunately, most of those recipes call for a Dutch oven, slow cooker, etc. This is disappointing to me as a tagine is the cooking implement I think of for Morocco. Nevertheless, there are several recipes I might try one day in this book, no tagine necessary.

Overall, I am pleased with the selection I can choose from even though these recipes take time and are the furthest from bland. The fact that I also consider most of these dishes healthy is an added bonus.

I've just received this book and not had the opportunity to read through it quite yet. The comment I can make is about the construction of the volume. Most hardcover books attach the spine of the book firmly to the cover. This book accomplishes the joining of the two simply by pasting the inside front cover and the back cover to the hardcover and the book body. This is not going to stand up to use and will probably tear with minimal use of this volume. It's a shame, because the book itself looks beautiful. But I expect that the book body and the hardcover will separate at some time in the not-too-distant future.

This is a beautiful book. Gorgeous photos, and travel writing with real heart and specificity and vision. Unfortunately, the recipes don't come nearly as close to perfection. I've tried a couple, but the equivalents in other Moroccan cookbooks I own come out better and with deeper flavors. Still worthwhile for the travel components, but look elsewhere for more inspiring recipes.

This is a beautiful cookbook. Some of the recipes call for ingredients that are not readily (if at all) found in New York stores or even on Amazon. But, there are enough delicious recipes in this book to make you a happy chef.

My daughter requested a book of Moroccan Recipes and was very VERY happy with the book.

Some cookbooks interpret a cuisine for the average kitchen and palate. Others are more like a travel book and show you the actual food you'd be eating if you were living there.

This one is more like an armchair travel book. I found few of the recipes appealing, and they were not americanized for a more average household's taste buds. Lots of whole fish and things that my family would not really love to see. I was hoping for new ideas on spicing and flavor combinations, but all the whole fish and gamey meats don't appeal to us.

There are tons of photos of the people and settings, even more so than the recipes (I am more interested in the recipes and while I am happy to see some interesting photos, that's secondary in a cookbook to photos of the food).

Overall, this just wasn't for me. It has merit and is interesting, but I won't cook anything in here.

This is a book that shows the great diversity of Morocco. The pictures are bright and colorful, and the recipes are straightforward and easy to follow. There are some ingredients that might be hard to find for some people, but not impossible. I have tried two recipes that came out well and I am eager to try more.

Paula Wolfert's Couscous and other good food from Morocco remains my first choice as a guide for Moroccan cuisine but John Gregory-Smith has produced a book with some different dishes and many very fine photographs - photographs not only of food but of places and people. It's truly a feast for the eyes. Finding ox cheeks, baharat spice mix, Ras el Hanout, or some other listed ingredients, might be a problem, but surely this book itself is a thing to savor.