How to make the perfect chermoula fish – recipe

Chermoula is “the emblematic marinade of Maghreb cuisine”, according to Casablanca native Nada Kiffa, who writes that the name comes from the Arabic verb chermel, “in reference to rubbing or marinating something with a spice mix”. Though the details vary, often in relation to the dish in question, the three constants are garlic, olive oil and plenty of fresh herbs; rather like an Italian salsa verde, but with a north African flavour profile, and a total “flavour bomb”, as chef and food writer Nargisse Benkabbou puts it.
The great Claudia Roden refers to chermoula as the “all-purpose Moroccan marinade and sauce used with every kind of fish – fried, grilled, baked and stewed”, and Benkabbou explains that it’s “traditionally used in Moroccan cooking as a flavouring for fish and vegetables”, before going on to admit that “I personally love it with anything savoury”. So, although I’ve chosen to try recipes using fish – mostly prompted, I suspect, by the desire to be sitting at a seaside restaurant on the Mediterranean, rather than at my desk in London – you could pair it with anything from red meat to roast red peppers, wherever you are.
The single most important ingredient – if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where greengrocers sell herbs in huge, floppy bunches, rather than pricey little plastic bags, then rejoice, because this is the recipe to make the most of your good fortune. The two you need to grab here are coriander and flat-leaf parsley: Benkabbou, who, like the American cookery writer, restauranteur and long-time Marrakech resident Robert Carrier, uses them in equal proportions, and invites readers of her book Casablanca to “feel free to substitute one for the other, if you prefer”.
Coriander seems the more popular of the pair, with Claudia Roden, Sam and Sam Clark of Moro fame and Zette Guinaudeau (whose 1958 book Fez Vue par sa Cuisine was one of the first published on the subject since the 12th century) using it alone, while Kiffa goes for three parts coriander to one part parsley, and Honey & Co’s Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich twice as much coriander as parsley. Clearly it’s a matter of personal taste; parsley adds a more peppery note, to my mind, while coriander tastes fresher and zestier. And, although I’m not a huge fan of parsley on its own, to my surprise I miss it slightly when it’s omitted here; it just seems to give the chermoula more depth and bitterness. I’ve gone for Kiffa’s 3:1 ratio, but adjust until it tastes right to you.
Garlic is mandatory, though if you’re not keen on it as a dominant flavour, you might prefer, as Packer and Srulovich do, to confine yourself to just the one clove rather than Guinaudeau’s dozen. That said, she is feeding 12 people. Even if you’re just cooking for one, however, you may as well make a whole jar: chermoula keeps well in the fridge covered in a layer of oil and, as Benkabbou has made clear, pairs with almost anything savoury.
The bitterness of cumin, a common addition, seems to enhance rather than compete with the coriander and parsley, but try as we might, none of my testers or I can pick up the saffron in Carrier’s version, which doesn’t stand a chance in the company of so much garlic and red pepper.
Packer and Srulovich are the only people to use fresh red chilli in their recipe; most suggest paprika, whether hot or sweet, or chilli powder or cayenne, though Kiffa notes that green chermoula, “without paprika and red elements”, also exists, as does a spicier red variety including harissa or extra cayenne pepper, which is often served with meat. I like just a touch of heat to echo that of the raw garlic, while also ensuring that the herbs remain the dominant flavour.
Not everyone adds acid to their chermoula – Packer and Srulovich, for example, squeeze lemon juice on top of the finished dish instead – but if you’re marinating a whole fish, as Guinadeau does with her “fine big shad”, you might like to know that it’s intended not only to flavour, “but has also, they say, the power of melting the bones”. Either way, I like the flavour, and would favour fresh lemon juice over the vinegar mentioned as a substitute in Roden’s recipe, which tastes sweet and rich in comparison to the clean acidity of the fruit.
Carrier, Packer and Srulovich include finely chopped preserved lemon, too, which I really enjoy with fish, but definitely feels like an optional extra. As so many writers are at pains to emphasise, this is one of those recipes that you should tweak until it suits your particular palate, so, as ever, please use the one below as jumping off point, and taste as you go.
Only Roden suggests using a food processor; everyone else finely chops the ingredients, or uses a pestle and mortar, which Kiffa prefers, because, she says, it releases the oils in the ingredients. As with so much where chermoula is concerned, I think it depends mostly on what you’re using it for: if its primary purpose is as a condiment or salsa, then a slightly coarser, chunkier texture might be preferable, while a marinade or rub demands a smoother, more homogenous paste. I do prefer the flavour of the version I make in the mortar, which seems better blended, but I concede it does take longer to prepare, and requires a lot more in the way of arm strength, so please know that one of the finest food writers of the past century says it’s OK to delegate the work. (I am, of course, referring to Claudia Roden.)
With recipes for everything from deep-fried chermoula-stuffed sardines (Kiffa, for the Taste of Maroc website) to chargrilled tuna kebabs with chermoula (Packer and Srulovich in their book Chasing Smoke: Cooking Over Fire Around the Levant) and whole mackerel (the Clarks in The Eagle Cookbook), you can use just about any fish you fancy, though if you’re going to marinate it, I’d suggest the thinner likes of sea bream or bass (whether filleted or whole), rather than larger, meatier fillets of cod or hake, where there’s more flesh to penetrate.
If you don’t have time to marinate (and Carrier recommends doing so overnight), you can still enjoy the chermoula’s flavour dolloped on top of the grilled or fried fish, as with the Honey & Co duo’s recipe – chermoula has so much punch that it works well as a condiment, too, with enough acidity to be a good pairing with Carrier and Kiffa’s floured and fried fish. Benkabbou, meanwhile, uses it as the base for a small-scale fish tagine, starting by marinating fillets of firm white fish in half the chermoula, and cooking carrots and potatoes in the rest, before baking the lot, topped with red peppers, tomatoes and preserved lemon, in the oven for one of the most vibrantly colourful dishes I’ve seen in a long time (on her blog, she writes that the recipe was inspired by Barcelona’s Park Güell).
My ideal scenario, however, as detailed below, is to marinate the fish, then chargrill it (preferably on the quay it was landed on, but your garden or grill pan will do) and serve with more chermoula on the side, as well as a generous wedge of lemon. You really can’t go wrong, though: whatever you serve this with, it’ll taste great.
Prep 15 min
Marinate 1 hr+
Cook 5 min
Serves 4
3 plump garlic cloves, peeled1 tsp salt, or to taste1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp hot paprika, or ¼-½ tsp cayenne pepper75g fresh coriander, leaves and soft stems25g flat-leaf parsley, leaves and soft stemsJuice of 1 lemon, plus wedges to serve
1 preserved lemon (optional)2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish4 white fish fillets, scaled and cleaned – I like sea bream here
Put the garlic and salt in a mortar and pound to a paste. Stir in the cumin and paprikas.
Trim off and discard the tough ends of the stalks from the herbs, then finely chop the rest, add to the mortar and pound to a chunky paste.
Stir in the lemon juice and enough olive oil to loosen the consistency. (Alternatively, use a food processor.)
If using the preserved lemon, cut it in half, remove any pips, then finely chop, skin, flesh and all. Stir this into the chermoula, then taste and adjust the seasoning to your taste, if necessary.
Brush the fish with chermoula (don’t use it all!) and put in the fridge to marinate for at least an hour, and up to eight hours if you have time.
Heat a barbecue or griddle pan until very hot, then cook the fish for two to four minutes on each side, until just cooked through – the exact timing will depend on the thickness of your fish. (Alternatively, fry the fish in a lightly greased frying pan.)
Serve the fish with the remaining chermoula and lemon wedges. Put any excess chermoula in a clean jar or container, cover completely in olive oil, then seal and store in the fridge, where it will keep for up to a week.