I made this as a vegetable side to go with the beef and nectarine tagine. I'm not a big fan of cauliflower most of the time, but this was pretty good.

Marak of Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Olives

Slightly adapted from The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 1 medium cauliflower¹, cut into florets (~4 c.)
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tsp. sweet paprika
• 1/2 Tbsp. cumin seeds
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 c. hot water
• 2 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/2 a preserved lemon², pulp removed, rind rinsed and julienned
• 12 pitted green, midway, or red olives

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat.
2. Add the cauliflower and sugar and cover with a crumpled sheet of parchemnt paper followed by a tight-fitting lid.
3. Cook for 10 minutes.
4. Increase heat to medium and continue cooking, uncovered, until the moisture has evaporated and cauliflower begins to brown.
5. Add the tomatoes and paprika and cook, uncovered, for another 5 minutes.
6. Combine the garlic, cumin, and salt and crush to a paste³.
7. Add the garlic-cumin paste to the pan along with the water.
8. Cook, uncovered, until the moisture has evaporated (~20 minutes).
9. Add the parsley and lemon juice and toss to coat.
10. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
11. Garnish with preserved lemon and olives and serve.

---

¹ My cauliflower was huge so I only ended up using half of it for this recipe. ^Back
2 I didn't feel like getting out a preserved lemon for this, so I just omitted it. I'm sure the lemon would've added a nice extra element, but it was still fine without it. ^Back
3 I just used garlic paste and ground the salt with the cumin separately for this. Next time I'd like to trying mashing them all together with my molcajete though. I think the garlic flavour would be a little more concentrated that way since garlic paste normally has water added. ^Back