TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS — Last Saturday evening, while most people went about their routine weekend activities, a group of Tahlequah residents took a trip to Morocco.

They didn’t take the Marrakesh Express or fly in on magic carpets. Simple vehicles were enough to get them to the home of David and Jacque Linebarger and daughters Emily and Ann, where they partook of a Moroccan feast, entertained with dancing by Traci Clark.

For the past five years, the Moroccan dinner has been one of the highlights of the service auction, the year’s major fund-raiser for Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tahlequah. Members bid on dinners, parties and items ranging from antiques to massage treatments and lawn care during the annual event.

A dozen bid on invitations to the Moroccan feast, and met at the Linebarger home. Jacque is well-known in the congregation for her culinary skills, with the capable assistance of her family.

After arriving, guests partook of “gathering food,” an olive tapenade along with spiced nuts. These were accompanied by a variety of wines and mint tea.

They sat on cushions on the floor in the Moroccan style, or (for those with creakier knees) regular living room seating for the appetizer, B-stilla, a multi-layered concoction of phyllo dough, chicken, spices and other ingredients.

“Moroccans eat with their fingers, the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand, although we have forks for those who need them,” Jacque said.

So before the first course, she circulated among the diners, pouring out warm water scented with rosewater to cleanse their fingers, and offering a towel to dry them.

The adventurous diners all partook of the B-stilla as finger food.

They moved into the dining room for the remainder of the meal, with courses punctuated by Clark’s dancing. Clark, who began learning belly dancing when living in Europe as a teen-ager, has studied in Egypt and Turkey. She teaches the art through the Northeastern State University Continuing Education program.

“I’m still considered a beginner, even though I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” she modestly told her audience.

The first course – the vegetarian course – consisted of soup, salad or both. The salad was romaine lettuce, oranges and dates dressed with a bit of oil. The soup was saffron vegetable soup.

“Last year, we made a soup that was the fast breaker for Ramadan. It was the most labor-intensive soup – I had to cook it all day,” she said.

Over the years, she’s experimented with several dishes, adding some to the repertoire and abandoning others – at least one because her family said it was too much work.

Preparation for the feast took almost a week. Jacque purchased the food at Reasor’s Monday night, and began cooking on Tuesday. She said many of the dishes can be prepared in stages, refrigerated, and brought out later for more work.

“A lot of the tagines are things you can prepare in advance, and heat up at the last minute,” she said.

The Linebargers first were introduced to Moroccan food during graduate school days.

“When we lived in the bay area, there was a Moroccan restaurant and I went there a couple of times,” she said.

She bought a couple of Moroccan cookbooks and began experimenting. She found the cookbooks through a search on Amazon.com. Her references are “The Food of Morocco” by Fatema Hal, and “Cooking at the Kasbah,” by Kitty Morse.

The main course consisted of the Moroccan staple couscous, a grain product that can be dressed up in many ways. On Saturday night, it was surrounded by chicken. A tureen of broth was nearby to serve as the sauce, as well as harissa, a Moroccan type of salsa with hot peppers. Both could be used to flavor the couscous.

Next came two tagines, both favorites of the Linebargers.

“The tagine is both the dish and the pot that it was baked in. It’s sort of shaped like a volcano,” Jacque said.

One tagine featured apricots cooked in butter, which one diner described as “luminous,” leading to a debate on whether food could be termed luminous. The other tagine is a favorite – chicken with artichokes and preserved lemons. Although preserved lemons are available by mail order, Linebarger makes her own, using salt.

That brings up another point: Ingredients for Moroccan food aren’t hard to obtain. Unlike Indian food, Moroccan fare demands no unusual ingredients unfamiliar to Americans, though some of the spices aren’t part of the standard American cupboard. However, spices like saffron, coriander and turmeric are widely available.

“Almost all of them [ingredients] can be bought at any grocery store,” Jacque said.

The exception was orange flower water. She obtained that at the Mecca coffee shop in Tulsa’s Brookside area.

The eagerly-received finale was mhancha, known as the “snake,” a coiled concoction of phyllo, stuffed with hazelnut paste and soaked in honey and butter. And to bring a grand end to the evening Clark, accompanied by husband Doug’s drumming, performed the sword dance, balancing a sword atop her head and on her chin while undulating gracefully. At her invitation, the Linebarger girls joined her for dancing, although they didn’t take up the sword.

Guests were lavish in their praise of the dinner.

“I love the steps here and all you went through,” Elizabeth Montgomery-Anderson said.

“That spice blend is something I’ve never tasted before,” Iris Tate said of one dish.

“The lamb was wonderful,” Lynn Cyert said.

The Linebargers admitted it’s a lot of work, mitigated by family cooperation.

“Ann makes the best mint tea, so she’s in charge of the tea,” Jacque said.

One of David’s duties this year was helping prepare the blanched almonds.

“I had to peel the skin off every single almond,” he said.

“Some of the skins came off, and some didn’t,” Jacque said. “I told him, “Tomorrow, go buy the slivered almonds. They’re already peeled.” So he did, and the result was still satisfactory, by anyone’s standards.



Mouth-watering Moroccan

Jacque Linebarger used these recipes when preparing Saturday’s Moroccan dinner.

Honey Spiced Lamb

4 pounds lamb shoulder, cut into large chunks

3 tablespoons Moroccan spice blend (see below)

2 to 3 cups water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup raisins, plumped in warm water and drained

1 cup slivered almonds, toasted

Moroccan Spice Blend:

1-1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

20 threads Spanish saffron

3/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. With your hands, thoroughly coat the meat with the spice blend. Set the meat in an oven proof casserole with a lid. Add the water, oil, butter, olive oil and honey. Cover tightly. Bake until the meat is very tender, about three to three and one-half hours. With a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to an ovenproof dish and keep warm. Put the sauce in a bowl or tupperware container in the refrigerator or freezer, and let the fat separate from the sauce and harden. Discard the fat from the top of the sauce. Put the sauce back in the casserole dish and add the raisins. Cook, stirring, until the sauce attains the consistency of maple syrup, 10-12 minutes. Add the lamb. Stir to coat and heat through. Transfer the meat to a shallow platter and garnish with toasted almonds.

Tagine of Chicken with

Preserved Lemons and

Artichoke Hearts

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 pounds chicken, cut up

1 onion, finely diced

1 cup chicken broth

8 threads Spanish saffron, toasted

10 sprigs fresh cilantro, tied with cotton string

20 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley, tied with cotton string

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon preserved lemon pulp (see below)

1 14-ounce can small artichoke hearts, drained

Rind of 2 preserved lemons, cut into thin strips (see below)

Fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

In a medium Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, paprika, ginger, pepper, and chicken. Cook, stirring to coat, for one to two minutes. Do not overcook or the spices will turn bitter. Add the onion, broth, saffron, cilantro and parsley. Cover tightly and cook on low until chicken is tender, 50 to 55 minutes.

With a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to an ovenproof dish, leaving the sauce in the pan. Discard the parsley and cilantro. Add the lemon juice, lemon pulp, and artichokes. Stir gently until the artichokes are heated through, four to five minutes. Gently stir the strips of lemon rind into the sauce. Mound the reserved chicken in the center of a serving platter and surround it with the artichokes. Spoon the sauce over the dish. Garnish with cilantro leaves.

Preserved Lemons

Preserved lemons can be purchased at specialty grocery stores. Or, you can make them using the recipe below:

12 or more unblemished, organically grown lemons, scrubbed

Sea salt, fine

Fresh lemon juice

Pat the lemons dry. Cut a thin dime-sized piece from both ends of the lemon. Set a lemon on one end and make a vertical cut three quarters of the way through the fruit, so that the two halves remain attached at the base: Do not cut it in half. Turn the lemon upside down and make a second vertical cut at a 90-degree angle to the first, again three quarters of the way through the fruit. Fill each cut with as much of the sea salt as it will hold. Place the lemon carefully at the bottom of a sterilized wide-mouthed quart glass jar. Proceed in this manner with the remaining lemons, compressing them in the jar until no space is left and the lemon juice rises to the top. Add fresh lemon juice to completely cover the lemons. Seal and set aside in the refrigerator. Lemons are ready to use in four to six weeks.