What is the Ras El Hanout spice?
The Ras-el-Hanout spice is a must in Maghreb cuisine. It is a mixture of several spices whose purpose is to raise the taste of your dishes. It is most often made up of a dozen spices, but traditionally, this composition can go up to fifty ingredients. However, there are spices that are essential to the manufacture of the "Maghreb curry", namely: cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, black pepper and nutmeg. Also called "grocery head", the Ras-el-Hanout spice enters the design of the typical dishes of the Maghreb like the famous Tagine.
What is composed of the Ras-el-Hanout spice?
Ras-el-Hanout is undoubtedly the best known spice of spice in Moroccan, Algerian or Tunisian cuisine. There is no ready -made formula for its design. Everything will depend on your imagination and your fantasy, but above all on the final taste you want to give it. As mentioned above, there are fundamental spices in its manufacture such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, black pepper and turmeric, but it is also possible to add other components. In most cases, the grocer adds a non-exhaustive list of spice: saffron, fennel, thyme, paprika, anise, cardamom ... it is good to specify that during the Composition of the ras-el-hanout, we only use powdered spices.
For a homemade fed up, you will need a tablespoon of each main spice and half a teaspoon of optional spices. Mix everything and close it in a hermetic glass jar. It can easily be kept and can last for several months, but the jar must be used exclusively only to put the Ras-el-Hanout spice. Indeed, due to its intense fragrance, the Maghreb curry leaves a strong smell in the jar. This can deteriorate the aroma of other spices.
How to use the Ras-el-Hanout spice?
Ras-el-Hanout is the ingredient not to forget. It is used when preparing tagine and couscous, but it mixes perfectly with meat or even vegetables. Due to its fairly strong aroma, just our Berlingot will be enough to season your dishes. The choice of cooking is very wide, because the Ras-el-Hanout spice can very well be used for your grill, oven, muffled or pan. It is an excellent condiment to marinate meat or fish. Vegetarians also find their accounts there, because it is the spice par excellence to season vegetables. A teaspoon (ie our Berlingot) will be enough to enhance the flavor of your vegetable dumplings, for example. For a much more eastern flavor, you can add a small pinch to your desserts, because it goes very well with honey and almonds.
The Ras-el-Hanout spice has a lot of virtues. The spices that compose it have various restorative properties. Curcuma is anti-crushing, cinnamon is antibacterial, but according to the Middle Oriental tradition the Ras-el-Hanout spice is mainly aphrodisiac.
Max Daumin
