In a tiny kitchen with no running water or electricity high in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in North Africa, Jo Phillip learned to cook. Lemon Chicken with Olives, Ramadan Soup, couscous and luscious round loaves of flat bread — these are the recipes she brought home to the Fox Valley after a stint in the Peace Corps. She also brought home her Moroccan husband, who ensured such foods would keep their romance simmering.
Neenah mom brings Moroccan foods home
By Margaret LeBrun
For The Post-Crescent
In a tiny kitchen with no running water or electricity high in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in North Africa, Jo Phillip learned to cook.
Lemon Chicken with Olives, Ramadan Soup, couscous and luscious round loaves of flat bread — these are the recipes she brought home to the Fox Valley after a stint in the Peace Corps. She also brought home her Moroccan husband, who ensured such foods would keep their romance simmering.
“I spent a lot of time with one family in particular,” Phillip of Neenah recalls of her Peace Corps work from 1996 through 1998. “It was very, very rustic. Their house was in the process of being built and falling down at the same time.”
She befriended one of two women of the house, who showed her how to cook with meager tools.
“She cooked in a kitchen about the size of my bathroom on a three-burner camp stove with a pressure cooker, a tea kettle, a couple of knives and bowls. She kneaded bread on the floor; she didn’t have a counter. She could take the cheapest, stinkiest old cut of mutton and turn it into something delicious.”
Phillip’s job was to show rural families in the mountains how to raise small animals such as rabbits and chickens to help improve their diets; a family of six could eat well with one chicken breast and plenty of vegetables.
Her Peace Corps job was based out of a technical college in the region, where she met her husband, M’barek Oubelkho, a teacher there. She had learned a bit of Arabic to prepare for her job, but he spoke French and Berber, the language of the rural Moroccan culture. Each had learned some German before so that became their common ground. They married in a civil ceremony. She agreed to convert from Catholicism to Islam, and he agreed to move to her home in Wisconsin.
From Morocco they brought home several tagine cooking and serving dishes, earthenware pots with conical lids that preserve moisture and help infuse flavors while slow cooking. In a larger one she often prepares her Lemon Chicken with Olives. She uses tiny, decorated tagines to serve lemon slices, dates, salt and spices, which go on the table with nearly every meal.
“It’s just the way they do it,” she says. “They don’t get them (spices) in a jar with a label on it. They get them in a twisted piece of magazine at the market. This makes for a nice presentation.”
As the mother of a new baby and a 3-year-old, Phillip steers clear of complicated cooking these days. She stirs a pot of soup on the stove with Meryem, 5 months, in a sling and little Noah playing on the kitchen floor of their home. M’barek (it sounds like “Mark” when she says it fast) works a regular shift at Oshkosh Truck, and she has been working part time doing marketing and public relations.
The time-consuming, popular Moroccan dish, couscous, doesn’t make it to their table very often.
“It’s labor intensive because you soak it, then you steam it, separate it, steam it again, plate it up and then carefully arrange your vegetables,” she says. “I might make it once a month, and when I do, my husband has to express enough gratitude for me to do it again.”
She does, however, make Moroccan bread often enough that they eat it daily. They also frequently enjoy a salad of tomatoes, roasted bell peppers and onions. She uses olive oil, common in Mediterranean cuisine, and makes plenty of chicken and lamb dishes.
“The real old-, old-, old-fashioned Moroccan food — I don’t know what it had in it. (Today) it’s definitely a fusion of Spanish, Arab and Jewish influences.”
Friends enjoy the meals she often shares with them.
“Jo is a truly gifted artist in many mediums, which translates to her cooking as well,” Rebecca Klich of Appleton says. “She can look in a cupboard and find five random ingredients, think for a moment, grab her utensils and go to work on a creative and delicious meal. She blends color, texture and flavor in the same way that she does in one of her paintings or poems.
“When I sit with Jo, enjoying one of her Moroccan dishes, I am treated to another view of her experience in Africa. The flavors and aromas of the food add another element to her stories and photographs, leaving me feeling more a part of the years she was away.”
When people ask what she did with the Peace Corps in Morocco, she responds with a playful reply.
“I tell people I was actually hanging out with people and eating their food!”
Moroccan Bread
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon instant yeast
2 cups bread flour
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1½ teaspoons salt
Additional water as needed
Oil for coating
Cornmeal for dusting
Optional: toasted sesame seeds or toasted cumin seeds
n Stir sugar into warm water. Add yeast.
n Sift flours and salt together in large, heavy mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add yeast mixture. Let stand until liquid begins to bubble.
n Mix into a rather stiff dough, adding warm water as needed. Turn dough out onto kneading surface. Knead thoroughly by hand, 10 to 15 minutes, until dough is quite smooth and pliable. Form a large ball and return, oiled, to the mixing bowl. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume.
n Heat oven (preferably with baking stone) to 450 degrees.
n Punch down and divide into three balls. Knead each, adding seeds if desired. Form into balls by tucking ends under and cover again to rest for 15 minutes.
n Flatten balls into discs using hands and, if needed, rolling pin. Bake until loaves make a hollow sound when thumped (about 20 minutes) and crust is golden brown. Cool on a rack.
(From Jo Phillip)
Harira (Ramadan Soup)
Lamb soup bones or chicken (thighs) or roasted chicken carcass (1 pound)
3 quarts water
2 medium onions
1/3 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (or 1 can chickpeas)
1 teaspoon turmeric or large pinch saffron
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (or 1 large can chopped tomatoes in juice)
½ cup lentils
½ cup broken vermicelli or other small pasta, or rice
3 tablespoons flour mixed with 2 cups water to thicken soup
lemons and dates for garnish
n Brown meat in oil, then add water and salt to taste. If using chicken leftovers, cook carcass in water.
n Remove meat from broth. Add onions, chickpeas and spices. Cook until chickpeas begin to soften (half hour if using dried). Remove meat from bones, chop to desired size and add to soup.
n Add tomatoes and lentils and cook until lentils are tender. Add pasta or rice, and cook until tender. Adjust seasonings, thicken with flour and water.
n Serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a plate of dates.
(From Jo Phillip)
Roasted Pepper and Tomato Salad
2 large green peppers
2 large ripe tomatoes
3 green onions
Juice of a lemon
Olive oil
Cumin
Black pepper or hot red pepper
Salt to taste
n Roast peppers on a grill, over gas stove flame or under broiler, turning as needed, until skin is blackened all over. Immediately place in a plastic bag.
n Peel, seed and chop tomatoes; slice onions.
n Remove peppers from bag, peel off blackened skin, pull out membranes and seeds and chop to same size as tomatoes.
n Mix peppers, tomatoes and onions. Add juice of lemon, splash of olive oil and seasonings to taste.
(From Jo Phillip)
Moroccan Kefta (Ground Meat)
1 large yellow onion
1 small bunch parsley
1 small bunch cilantro
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
Cayenne pepper and salt to taste
2 pounds ground beef or lamb, or mix
n Chop onions, parsley and cilantro as finely as possible. Press garlic and add, with spices, to ground meat. Form into oblong patties and grill until done to your liking.
(From Jo Phillip)
Chicken with Lemon and Olives
2 lemons
1 chicken, cut into pieces (remove skin)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced
½ bulb garlic, minced or pressed
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 pinch saffron or ½ teaspoon turmeric
1½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 small bunch parsley
1 small bunch cilantro
Salt to taste
1 jar each, green and purple-brown olives, drained
n Prepare lemons the night before: Cut 1 lemon as though halving lengthwise, but do not cut through the end. Repeat, in effect quartering the lemon, but with one end holding it together. Heavily salt all surfaces of the lemon and place in a plastic bag or container with tight lid. Squeeze the juice of the second lemon into the bag or container. Refrigerate overnight, turning whenever you open the fridge.
n In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, brown chicken pieces in oil. Add onion, garlic, spices and salt; saute until onions soften, about 5 minutes. Add 2 cups water and green herbs (tie with string if you have it). Cover and simmer until chicken is done all the way through (depends on size and type of chicken). When done, add lemons and olives and heat through. Arrange on a large plate (removing green herbs), and serve with bread and salad.
(From Jo Phillip)
Moroccan Mint Tea
1 quart water
1 large bunch fresh mint (if buying in plastic containers from the grocery store, you will need at least 2 packages)
1 teaspoon Chinese gunpowder green tea
Sugar to taste
n Boil water in tea kettle. In teapot, place tea, mint and sugar. Add boiling water, stir to dissolve sugar. If teapot can be used over heat, allow tea to come to a boil. Serve in small glasses, poured from as high as possible, garnish with more mint if available.
(From Jo Phillip)
Home Cooking is a weekly feature shining the spotlight on amateur cooks in the Fox Valley. If you know of someone worthy of being featured, contact Margaret LeBrun at Mlebrun@new.rr.com.
