People book a cooking class not quite knowing what they'll get. Sometimes it's a chef demonstrating while you watch. Sometimes it's assembling pre-chopped ingredients. Here's exactly what happens in ours.

It starts at the market

Before any cooking, you walk the medina market with your host and buy what you're about to use — vegetables, herbs, the spice blend, and if you want a fish tagine, the fish itself from the port market. This part matters because it's where you learn what things are actually called and what a fair price looks like.

Moroccan salads

The small plates that come before the main dish — usually a cooked tomato and pepper zaalouk, a carrot salad with cumin, and a raw tomato and onion salad. They're simpler than they look and they're the thing most guests actually go home and make again.

The tagine

Chicken with preserved lemon and olives, fish with chermoula, or a vegetable tagine — you choose. You make yours from the start in your own pot. The two things people find surprising: the vegetables are stacked in a cone rather than stirred together, and far less liquid goes in than any recipe you've read at home suggests. The conical lid condenses steam and returns it to the dish, so it effectively cooks in its own moisture. Adding water is the most common mistake.

Khobz

The round Moroccan bread, from flour and yeast, kneaded and proved while the tagine cooks. This is the part children love and the part most adults have never done. It's also what you eat the tagine with — bread instead of cutlery.

Mint tea

Poured from height, and your host will make you do it again until it foams properly. There's a technique and it takes about four attempts.

Then you eat it

Around a shared table, family-style, which takes about an hour. Most people don't need dinner afterwards. We send the recipes the next day. Vegetarian and vegan are straightforward; gluten-free needs a day's notice.

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