Stuffed Camel Spleen~
2 min read
Here we are:
If I say Camels, you think about the animal of the great caravans that transversed the great trade routes of the deserts and they are still bred and traded at livestock markets from the Atlas Mountains to souks of the Saharan towns.
However most Camels in Morocco, which you encounter in any great number, are destined for the dinner table and always have been!
For example, in the old Moroccan city of Fes, giant logs of offal become tasty street sandwiches: here, among the chaos of the medina’s winding pedestrian walkways, street vendors slice and sear sausage-like pieces of meat that appear similar to massive haggises.
They’re preparing pieces of spleen, stuffed taut with ground meat, olives, spices and a little bit of hump fat.
These bulging loaves, which easily are almost a half meter in length, sit alongside the griddle, set in a huge metal tray out in the open air.
The offal casing is actually a camel’s spleen, called by locals tehal, and the filling can be a medley of camel, cow, or lamb meat. Vendors offer the same fillings stuffed in a cow’s spleen, as well, and traditionally, cooks prebake the filled log into a deep shade using one of Morocco’s many communal bread ovens, then they fry it.
Vendors are experts and take rapid-fire requests, scrambling the stuffed spleen with herbs, vegetables, and sometimes, if you ask nicely, an egg in about a minute. Then, they’ll scoop the mixture into open pockets of batbout, a kind of Moroccan pita bread.
Is common that locals workers line up to take a quick tasty lunch made with creamy meat crammed into fresh, floury breads every day. And the meal never runs more than 12 dirham, or a little more than $1 (0,87€).
