Recipe: Medina Poké Bowl

The cookbook Shoukran by Abdel Alaoui is a tribute to his mother. Shoukran means thank you in Arabic, and there is a reason for that. Abdel wants to thank his mother for instilling in him a love of cooking and showing him a world full of flavours. We would now like to thank him for this book, because it contains so many incredibly delicious Moroccan dishes that for the foreseeable future we will probably be eating nothing but Moroccan food. Tonight, we’re making a Medina poké bowl.

Abdel grew up in Oujda, Morocco, where his mother taught him how to cook. All the dishes in the book therefore originate from his family’s culinary tradition. In Shoukran, you’ll find 100 of his favourite recipes. The Medina poké bowl is an ideal bowl for lunch or to take to the office. ‘Put it together with all the leftovers from your kemia!’ says Abdel.

‘Kemia’ means ‘small quantities’. These are refreshing vegetable-based appetisers that you can share with drinks or at a dinner party. Moroccan tables are always laden with dishes, and kemia are a major part of that.

How to make the Medina Poké Bowl

• First make the chickpeas with harissa. To do this, heat a frying pan over low heat with a little olive oil and fry the onion and garlic, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes, fry everything for another 5 minutes and add the chickpeas.
• Add the cumin and ground ginger and season with salt and pepper.
• After 4 minutes, add the coriander and harissa and heat everything for another minute.
  
• Place the peppers in an oven preheated to 230 °C conventional or 210 °C fan for 30 minutes, so they can be peeled easily.
• Meanwhile, fry the aubergine with half of the garlic and coriander and some salt and pepper in a little olive oil in a large frying pan. Braise everything over low heat for 20 minutes and add the raisins towards the end of the cooking time.
• Put the onion in a saucepan and pour the vinegar and water over it, add the sugar and briefly bring everything to the boil to make pickled onions. Set aside.
• Remove the peppers from the oven, peel them and cut them into small pieces. Fry them in a little olive oil with the other half of the garlic and coriander in a frying pan. Add some salt, pepper and cumin to make mechouia.
• Drizzle the carrot with lemon juice, sprinkle with a little cumin and mint, and season with some salt and pepper.
• Spoon the bulgur into bowls. Arrange the various vegetables, the chickpeas with harissa and, if desired, some extra mint and coriander on top.