Cooking workshop in Marrakesh: market, tagine and a shared meal

The best places to see how Moroccan cooking works are the market, where the spices are weighed out, and next to a tagine cooking slowly over a small fire. In this workshop you do everything yourself: the shopping, the cooking, taking bread to the neighborhood oven and then eating together. It happens in the kitchen of a riad or in a family home, with a cook who does this every day.

The program

Soukayna picks you up around half past nine. We drive to a market in an ordinary residential neighborhood of Marrakesh, not to the souks of the medina. This is where locals buy their vegetables and spices. You learn the difference between ras el hanout from the spice seller and the jar from the supermarket, and why there are so many kinds of Moroccan olives.

Back in the kitchen, the chopping starts. A tagine is not complicated. It comes down to the order of things and to patience. While the tagine cooks, we make three salads, usually with tomato, bell pepper, carrot and cumin, and we knead bread. That bread goes to the neighborhood oven, because in many neighborhoods nobody bakes at home. You can take it there yourself.

Around one o'clock everything is on the table. You eat what you made, with tea, and there is room for questions about food, family and daily life in Morocco. At the end you get the recipes to take with you.

What you learn

You learn how to build a tagine: first the onion and the spices, then the meat or the vegetables, and after that it is a matter of waiting. The cook explains what cumin, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and ras el hanout do and which dishes they belong in. You make the cooked salads that are on the table at every Moroccan meal, such as zaalouk made with eggplant and taktouka made with peppers. You knead the bread without a scale, by feel.

Who it's for

For anyone who likes to cook at home and wants to understand how Moroccan food is put together. If you never cook, it is still fun to spend a morning in someone's home. With friends, or as mother and daughter, it is a good morning to share. If you also want to see the spice sellers in the medina, take the souk tour on another day.

Good to know

Wear clothes that can take a splash of oil. In summer the kitchen is warm, so we start a little earlier. What else you can expect at the table is on our page about food and drink in Morocco.

The workshop is in French or English, and Soukayna helps translate where needed. For questions beforehand, use the chat on this website, in English, French or Dutch.

Tell us about allergies and dietary wishes when you book, along with your date and the number of people. You can do that through the contact page.