A couple of years ago I was gifted a copy of Jamie Oliver’s Food Escapes– a boxed DVD set of six, beautifully filmed, visually delicious 45-minute episodes. In each, Oliver explores a different city, from Venice to Athens, to Stockholm.
The Marrakech episode is particularly visually stunning; shots of the host hurrying down a maze of alleys toward a communal oven and supping with an extended family in an airy, open courtyard had me dreaming of a plane ticket and a backpack filled with linen tunics.
At one point, Oliver constructs a dessert called “the snake”, of fillo-like dough wrapped around a filling of ground almonds, butter, sugar and eggs, scented with orange and dusted with dried rose petals.
Too elegant for everyday baking, perhaps, I naturally assumed those flavors might translate well into this granola– the grainy crunch of toasted oats, pop of green pistachios and sticky chew of plump, dried apricots. I threw in a tablespoon of orange flower water before baking, (though the resulting flavor was greatly muted and you might think of adding it after baking). With the sticky binder based in olive oil and honey, I was expecting quite a crunch. The finished product was stickier than I would have preferred but seemed to age throughout the week toward something closer to what I originally had in mind.
A few notes: a heavy hand with the salt with greatly helps to balance the savory-sweetness of the nuts and dried fruit and round out some of the sugar. The long baking time resulted in pistachios that were a little worse for wear– I would add them directly to the baking oats about half way through cooking time. Lastly, make sure you fold in the apricots after the granola has baked– they will become hard and chewy in the oven.
Marrakech-Inspired Granola
adapted from Orangette and Nekisia Davis
3 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup shelled, raw pistachios
1/2 cup chopped, dried apricots (about 10)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
zest of 1 orange (about 2 tsps)
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1/2 tbsp orange flower water (optional)
1 tbsp dried rose petals (optional)
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F, and line a half sheet baking pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, salt, orange zest and sesame seeds. Add the olive oil, honey and orange flower water, stirring very well to combine. Spread the oat mixture onto the baking sheet and spread into a thing layer. Bake for 45 minutes, rotating and stirring every 15 and adding the pistachios at 30 minutes, until golden brown and fragrant. Fold in the chopped apricots and allow to cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in an airtight contained at room temperature for up to one month, though mine was gone after a week.
Serving suggestions: thick, Greek yogurt and fresh blueberries; almond milk.
One-Knife Kitchen 