Medfouna
The Saharan speciality — a round stuffed bread filled with spiced meat, onions and herbs, baked buried in sand and embers. Ask for it a day ahead.
Food
What we cook, and why
Saharan cooking is not the same as the Moroccan food you will have eaten in Marrakech. Fewer ingredients, longer cooking, and a lot of ingenuity born of not having much.
Home → Moroccan Food
Tagine
Slow-cooked in the conical clay pot that gives it its name. The lid returns condensation to the dish, which is how you cook meat tender with very little water.
Dates and almonds
Grown in the oases around Rissani and Erfoud. The date palm is why settlement is possible here at all.
Medfouna — the one to try
Often called "Berber pizza", which undersells it. Two discs of dough are sealed around a filling of minced lamb or beef, onion, parsley, almonds and spices, then baked — traditionally in hot sand with embers heaped over it. It comes out as a thick, dense, savoury loaf that is cut into wedges and shared.
It takes time, so tell us the day before if you want it. It is genuinely the dish of this region rather than of Morocco generally.
Tagine, and why the pot matters
A tagine is both the dish and the vessel. The cone-shaped lid traps steam, condenses it and returns it to the food, so a tough cut becomes tender over hours with barely any liquid — an elegant solution in a place where water is scarce and fuel is scarcer. Ours are usually lamb with prunes and almonds, chicken with preserved lemon and olives, or vegetable.
Khobz — the bread
Round flat loaves, baked here every day. In Morocco bread is also the cutlery: you tear a piece and use it to lift food from the communal dish. It is worth learning — food genuinely tastes different eaten that way, and there is a sociability to eating from one plate that a plated meal does not have.
Spices
Cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, paprika and saffron, plus ras el hanout — literally "head of the shop", a blend of a dozen or more spices that varies by household. The regional spice markets are in Rissani and Erfoud.
Saharan cooking is fragrant rather than fiery. If you want heat, harissa is on the table; it is not usually cooked into the dish.
The mint tea
Green tea, a large handful of fresh mint, a lot of sugar, poured from a height so it foams. It arrives when you arrive, after every meal, and whenever anyone thinks you might like some. If you would prefer it less sweet, just say — we make it that way often for guests and nobody is offended.
What is included, and what is not
Breakfast and dinner are included in every room rate. Breakfast is bread baked that morning, olive oil, jam, honey, eggs if you want them, coffee and tea. Dinner is normally soup, then a tagine or couscous, then fruit. Out at the bivouac, dinner is cooked at camp and eaten under the tent awning, and the luxury package includes drinks.
Dietary requirements are genuinely not a problem. Everything is cooked from raw ingredients in our own kitchen, so vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and allergy needs are straightforward — we simply cook differently. Tell us when you book rather than on the night, and it will be handled properly.