MOROCCO: Mediterranean Swordfish with Vegetable Cous Cous and Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Today, in the first *cooking* post of the new year (I wonder how many firsts I can have before it gets old?) I am debuting my ethnicity of the month feature that I spoke about yesterday. Today will be the first Moroccan dish that I'm making. And, I must admit, it's not really pure Moroccan. Most countries in the world do not have truly unique food. What may be called pita in the Middle East might appear as something somewhat similar to nan in India. What passes for a latke when you're Jewish is part of Irish potato culture or Russian hard-winter sustenance. Chinese cuisine might include a pancake with moo shu which looks somewhat similar to a French crepe or the large pancakes used in traditional Ethiopian cuisine. And within regions the lines can be even more blurred. You'll find this very true of Middle Eastern food. Ironically, Israelis and Arabs even share many of the same traditional dishes, underlining their past cultural history together, even as they war today.

Across the Middle East you'll find some things you recognize, such as cous-cous and olives and hummus, and others you might not necessarily associate as much with the region such as dates and lamb. This meal takes a few of these things into account. Swordfish, which often spawns in the Mediterranean itself, is cooked with lemon and spices in foil. It is paired with curried cous-cous with fresh veggies. This is a dish you could easily find on many different Mediterranean coasts, but it will serve well as an introduction to our Morocco discussion. Finally, I added in slow-roasted tomato as the veggie. I'm afraid I can't quite claim that as Moroccan or even Mediterranean, but it's not really a member of another culture either. Slow-roasting has been around as long as humans have cooked and was especially useful on tough meat caught while hunting in times long past. In this case, I use it to bring out the strong and powerful flavors of tomato that pairs excellently with the rest of the meal.

Time: 7 hours (most of this is just for tomatoes to cook)
Difficulty: Easy
Wine: Roussanne or Riesling

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
Slow-roasting takes a long time, but the good news is that once it's in the oven you have nothing to do all day. The catch, of course, is that if you slow-roast you'll be stuck in the house all day. In my case this interfered with initial shopping plans so I rescheduled this meal for when a slew of football games were on my TV which worked out nicely. You wake up, pop this in on a weekend, and then can putter around your house while it cooks. In the meantime the smells fill your air, tantalizingly delicious smelling, and making everyone extra eager for dinner.

Just make sure you plan ahead before embarking on this recipe! You'll need about 7 hours in all to make sure this is ready.

Ingredients:
olive oil
sugar
dried basil
dried oregano
garlic powder
freshly ground black pepper
tomatoes
(basis of this recipe from Cooking Light)

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Since you'll be roasting for so long you only need a low temperature.

Cut your tomatoes in half or quarters depending on size. For plum tomatoes, half lengthwise is perfect. I used some medium vine tomatoes and cut them in quarters as pictured.

Mix together all of the ingredients listed above except for tomatoes. For 6 medium tomatoes I used 1/2-3/4 a tablespoon of sugar and the same amount of olive oil. I used roughly 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil and dried oregano and about 1/4 of a teaspoon of garlic powder and black pepper. Mix these together well and then add the cut tomatoes and toss to make sure they are fully coated.

Use cooking spray such as PAM to grease a cookie sheet and put the tomatoes on it, cut sides up. Pour any remaining oil mixture over them, scraping it out of the bowl used for mixing. Roast for 6.5 hours.

Mediterranean Swordfish
Once the tomatoes are getting relatively close to done you'll want to turn your attention to the fish. If you have a double oven start this process when the tomatoes have 30-45 minutes left (the cooking time for the fish is a lot less but you'll need prep time as well.) If you only have one oven then you'll want to get everything ready during the tomatoes last 30 minutes and then pop the fish in as soon as they come out. You can cover them with foil to keep them warm as the fish cooks.

Ingredients:
swordfish
black pepper
olive oil
lemon
fake salt (optional)

Preheat your oven to 425.

And now for the super easy part! You'll serve the fish with the cous-cous so you'll find the actual preparation of the fish is very basic and very simple while sticking to some traditional flavors and methods.

Cut the fish into the appropriate number of pieces for the people who are eating, since it does not come in fillets already. Since there were just 2 of us enjoying 1 lb of fish for my meal I split it in two. Take the appropriate number of pieces of foil and lay them on the counter. Place a piece of swordfish in the center of each. Drizzle about 1/2 a tsp of olive oil over each piece. Sprinkle with black pepper and fake salt if you must (I skipped it of course.) Place a few slices of lemon on top of each. Fold the foil up and twist the edges over to form a closed packet.

Place the packets on a baking sheet and cook at 425 for 15 minutes.

Vegetable Cous-Cous
Finally, you'll want to whip up the cous-cous. Set some water boiling about 15 minutes before your tomatoes are done and start cutting up the veggies. That way when the tomatoes are done the cous-cous should have just finished and you can just mix everything together. If you do not time it correctly, however, do not worry. Many people serve the cous-cous as a chilled dish so it doesn't matter if its cooler than when originally finished.

Ingredients:
cous-cous
grape tomatoes
red onion
garlic
fresh oregano
olive oil
lemon juice

Boil the water and cook your cous-cous. I used a curry variety but any kind will work very well here. Follow the directions and then continue once it is prepared.

While the cous-cous is cooking you can cut up everything else. For one full packet of cous-cous I used about 1.5 cups of halved grape tomatoes (one medium-large container), 1/4 cup diced red onion, 3 garlic cloves, 3 teaspoons of chopped fresh oregano, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. As usual, these are just estimates. Mix all of those ingredients together with the cous-cous and fluff with a fork. Serve the cous-cous with the fish.