To ask North African MNers about food?

[BorisBadunov]

What are the big no-no’s of cooking Moroccan and Algerian dishes? I just read that harissa isn’t Moroccan and fruity couscous is bleurgh. 😳

What else am I doing wrong? And any tips for more authentic North African dishes?

DH is Berber and loathes fruit in couscous.
As with all cuisines, there are lots of regional variations.
DH's pet hates regarding "North African" dishes (if it means anything) are :

• spice overload
• too much meat (meat is usually expensive, there are lots of pulse-based dishes). We live in France and he rants every time "couscous royal" is mentioned

My experience of cooking Algerian food. Fruit in a tagine is a no no. They seem to like alot of oil in their food and everything has to look orange. They use this orange powder to make it orange and not saffron which is too pricey. YouTube is your friend ( if you speak Arabic or French) cooking with Alia I use to use.

A pressure cooker is helpful to get tender meat. My husband loves meat though so wouldn’t complain about that even if it’s not authentic. There is a thread about Algerian husbands in the multicultural families board.

My Algerian BIL believes that literally everything must be served with bread. As much bread as possible.

RoyalChocolat - your DH is right, «couscous royal» is an abomination which I have only seen in tourist restaurants and never encountered in a home.

OP - North Africa is a vast area and the cuisine varies from one region to another, particularly in the amount of spices used. Some regions use plenty of harissa whereas others use very little or none at all. Moroccan food tends to be sweet and not spicy.

Thanks! So where does fruity couscous come from then? M&S?

I will look at the Alia channel on YouTube (French speaker here).

Couscous royal sounds like a pricey gimmick, I’m more interested in getting the balance of spices rights.

I've got a friend who could help with this

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3693024-To-Tell-Friend-To-Feed-Her-Child-Properly

Haha, sorry that was me.

My dad is Algerian. Everything with bread, and salad. Cous cous steamed, served hot with some sort of stew on top. No fruit. Plenty of harissa.

The best thing to come out of Algeria is Mhadjeb which is like a spicy puff pastry bread thing. Literally out of this world. My husband says it would be his death row meal.

Love mhadjeb hmmmm