Tfaya

Onions and raisins cooked down for an hour until they are dark and jammy, spooned over couscous rather than eaten alone.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter), honey.

Ingredients

• 1 kg onions, sliced thin
• 200 g raisins
• 100 g butter
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• a generous pinch of saffron
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 200 ml water
• 100 g blanched almonds, fried, to finish

Method

1. AN HOUR ON A LOW HEAT AND NO SHORTCUT. A kilo of onions takes that long to go from white and sharp to dark, soft and jammy, and there is no way to hurry it: raised to a medium heat they brown at the edges and stay crunchy in the middle, which is a completely different thing. Most of the hour needs no attention.
2. IT IS A TOPPING AND NOT A DISH. Spooned over couscous as on its own page, or over chicken. A bowl of it alone is overwhelming -- it is extremely sweet and is designed to sit against something plain.
3. THE HONEY GOES IN LATE, in the last twenty minutes, for the same reason it does in the lamb on this list: sugar over a long cook catches and burns on the base.
4. Saffron steeped in a spoonful of warm water.
5. Raisins soaked in warm water 20 minutes, drained.
6. Butter melted in a wide heavy pan over a LOW heat. Onions in with the salt.
7. Cooked 45 minutes, stirred every 10 minutes, until completely collapsed and golden. They will reduce to about a quarter of their volume.
8. Cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon, ginger and saffron in with the water. Cooked 15 minutes more.
9. NOW the honey and the raisins. Stirred through and cooked UNCOVERED a further 20 minutes.
10. Stirred more often from here -- it thickens and will catch once the liquid goes.
11. It is ready when it is dark brown, sticky, and holds a channel behind the spoon.
12. The cinnamon sticks removed. Almonds fried in a little butter until golden and scattered over.
13. Keeps a week in the fridge and reheats with a splash of water.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Morocco · All recipes