Tagine Kdra — The Clarified Butter and Onion Base

Morocco (Fès — the white/blonde tagine base; the most ancient of the Moroccan tagine sauce registers; the preparation that predates the introduction of chilli and paprika from the Americas)

Kdra is Morocco's oldest tagine base register and the one that has changed least since the Andalusian-Arabic cuisine of the medieval Maghreb: clarified-butter (smen in aged form, unsalted clarified-butter in everyday use), Allium cepa onion cooked until pale and golden (not dark-caramelised), saffron (Crocus sativus), white-pepper (not black), ground Trigonella foenum-graecum fenugreek, and a generous quantity of Allium cepa onion that remains more intact than in M'qualli — producing a blonde, gentle, onion-forward sauce without the red of Mhammer or the ginger dominance of M'qualli. Kdra is the base for chicken with chickpeas (a Fès classic), lamb with almonds and onion (Seffa mkaour), and pigeon or lamb preparations for weddings. The smen or clarified-butter character is what distinguishes Kdra from all other Moroccan bases: it is the fat that runs through it, providing a rich, slightly aged dairy note.

Kdra base generates chicken with chickpeas, pigeon tagine, lamb with almonds — the pale, refined, celebration-register preparations of Fès. The blonde sauce with smen depth is the most elegant of the Moroccan tagine bases.