Shabbat Joy — Moroccan Fish with Leeks and Peppers

Long before I light my candles,   the smoky scent of my Moroccan fish signals that Shabbat is coming. Like my mother and my grandmothers before me, I serve my family and friends this flavorful, saucy fish dish every Friday night.

For Sephardic Jews, serving fish as the first course on Friday night is symbolic of blessing and continuity. Fish, with their plentiful eggs, represent fertility and abundance. Their constantly open eyes are a sign of divine protection. And the fact that they swim deep in the ocean means that they are always protected from “ayin ha’ra,” the evil eye.

In the olden days, fish was considered a delicacy and special foods were always served for “oneg Shabbat,” the pleasure of Shabbat.

“Dag,” the Hebrew word for fish, shares the same root as the word “da’agah,” which means worry, so in eating fish on Shabbat, we symbolically leave our worries behind and enter the peace of the holy day.

Every week, my Moroccan fish is a little different. Depending on my mood, I’ll use leeks instead of onions. Sometimes I add thinly sliced carrots and sometimes I’ll add cooked garbanzo beans to make the dish heartier. Some weeks I crave a rich, full-bodied sauce made with tomato purée; other times I keep it light, letting the flavor of the fresh fish shine through.

However, my sauce always begins the same way, with a generous pour of olive oil in the pan. Then I will layer in leeks or onions, and red, yellow and green peppers, along with a handful of chopped cilantro. Once the vegetables soften, I add canned cherry tomatoes, paprika, cumin, turmeric, a bit of preserved lemon and capers. I add a couple of dried Mexican ancho chilis for heat. Then I nestle in the fish. I like to serve sea bass, though salmon is a wonderful, more practical option when feeding a crowd. I add a splash of water, cover the pot and let everything simmer gently until the sauce thickens and the fish becomes tender, infused with all those layered flavors.

 When I bring my Moroccan fish to the table, the dish is an inviting array of vivid gold and deep greens and the tempting aromatic red sauce just begs to be soaked up with fresh challah or spooned over fluffy couscous or rice.

This recipe connects my family to generations of Moroccan Jews who ended their week the same way — with fish slowly cooked in a fragrant sauce, surrounded by love and laughter. It is a tradition my family has followed for many generations and it fills me with pride to carry this tradition to the next generation.

Every week, no matter how I make my Moroccan fish, the feeling is always the same. It tastes like home.

—Rachel

With the huge influx of Libyan, Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian Jews to Israel in the 1950s, chraime or Moroccan-style fish supplanted gefilte fish as the Friday night favorite.

Both my Moroccan Spice Girl partner (Rachel) and my Moroccan Tunisian daughter-in-law (Rachel) make the most incredibly moist and flavorful Moroccan fish. Each Rachel brings her own creative take on the recipe, but both inspire me to make fish à la Morocain every Friday night.

I use harissa paste, tomato paste and a big can of crushed tomatoes because everyone in my family loves the sauce.

I use jalapeño peppers, with the stem and most of the seeds removed because I’m serving it to my young niece and nephews (and no one needs to be traumatized by too much spicy heat!) I love to add carrots, garbanzo beans and lots of thinly sliced potatoes.

That is the beauty of this dish — it appeals to most taste buds, young and old, it will feed a crowd and it is adaptable to whatever fish, spices and vegetables that you prefer.

Talk about the joy of Shabbat!

—Sharon

Serves: 6–8