Moroccan Mashed Potato Casserole for Passover (Batata bil Firan)

Today I have a great Moroccan Passover mashed potato casserole recipe to share with you. It’s basically a mashed potato kugel with Moroccan flavoring (read: it’s quite a bit more vibrant than your traditional Ashkenazi potato preparation).

This type of potato-egg dish is also known as maakouda, and under that name it is commonly sold in single-serving fritters as a snack food in Morocco, even today. While the street version is fried, home-cooked maakouda tends to be baked. Mashed potato casserole would be a great vegetarian main, with plenty of protein from the eggs, or a nice pareve side to a meat meal.

But before I get to the recipe, a little on the etymology of the name of this dish. White potatoes are indigenous to the Andes, and, as such, didn’t make their way into Old World cuisines until the sixteenth century at the very earliest (and, in most cases, not until much later). Sweet potatoes, also native to the Andes, which had spread all the way to the Caribbean by the time of Columbus, reached Europe first: Columbus himself brought some back to Spain in 1493 following his first expedition, under the Taino name for tubers, batata.

When the Spanish first encountered the white potato in Peru in 1537, they called it patata, a corruption of the actual indigenous word for white potato, papa, and batata. In Portuguese, however, white potatoes are to this day known as batata. Batata is also the word for potato in contemporary Arabic, hence Batata bil Firan.

This Moroccan mashed potato casserole recipe is slightly modified from Gil Marks’s Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities around the World, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks.

Moroccan Mashed Potato Casserole (Batata bil Firan)

2 pounds unpeeled baking russet potatoes, scrubbed

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 onions, chopped

1 carrot, diced

1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced

6 large eggs

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cumin, optional

4 scallions, sliced

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro, optional

Put the potatoes in a large pot and add cold water to cover by 1 inch. Add 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a low boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, uncovered, until fork-tender, about 25 minutes. Drain. Peel the potatoes and, while still warm, run them through a food mill or ricer or mash with a potato masher or heavy whisk.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and carrot and sauté until lightly golden, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.

Beat the eggs into the potatoes, one at a time. Stir in the remaining salt, the pepper, and the turmeric and cinnamon (and cumin, if using). Add the onions and scallions.

Oil a shallow 8-cup baking dish (8-inch square or 7- by 11-inches). Spoon the potato mixture into the baking dish. Bake until golden, about 50 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Sources: “Beyond the Seder: An Ideal Passover Dish from the Moroccan Kitchen,” Haaretz (Vered Guttman, March 28, 2013); Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010); Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities around the World (Gil Marks, 2004)