Laois born chef Rory O'Connell makes first Irish cookery show in Africa

Laois born celebrity chef Rory O'Connell is back on RTÉ television with a tasty new show.

How To Cook Well in Morocco is the new inspiring cookery series by the Cullohill village native whose sister Darina Allen is also a celebrity chef and cookbook author. 

With Darina - soon back in Laois as part of a high end garden festival -  he founded the world renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School.

In this new seven part series, Rory O’Connell will visit Morocco, one of his favourite countries.

It is the first cookery series for RTÉ that has been filmed in Africa.

Rory told the Leinster Express / Laois Live more.

“Since first visiting Marrakech in 1988, I have visited Morocco many times and have been entranced by the place, the people, the food, the sights and sounds, the exotic atmosphere and the new discoveries,” he says.

“To be able to revisit favourite places and discover new ones, and to share those experiences has long been a dream of mine.”

Rory travels from Tangier on the north coast to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, visiting Chefchaouen, Fez, Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains along the way. At the end of each programme, Rory cooks a dish that has been inspired by his travels, capturing a flavour of Morocco, back home in East Cork.

Episode One will air on Wednesday April 16 on RTÉ One at 8.30pm.

In it, Rory leaves Spain and takes the short ferry trip across the Straits of Gibraltar.  The city of Tangier is an exciting cultural melting pot and trading hub with a slightly rakish vibe, which has been popular with writers and actors for more than a century.  Leaving the ferry, Rory visits the fish market before cooking a fish tagine at Blue Door Cuisine, a cookery school with an all female team which aims to promote cultural exchange through food. 

Rory’s friend Pin Affleck is an Australian who visited Tangier and was bewitched by the place, making it her home. In 2020, Pin founded The Tangier Bureau, a textile company which produces her own contemporary designs using traditional hand weaving methods and Rory visits the workshop where the products are made.

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At Donabo Gardens Rory has a traditional lunch of harira soup and flatbreads, cooked in a clay oven, with his friends Malika El Alaoui and her husband Paul Belvoir who founded the botanical garden.

Finally, Rory samples some of the street food for which Tangier is famous before heading to the storied Gran Café de Paris where writers such as Tennessee Williams and Samuel Beckett enjoyed watching the world go by.

Back home in Ballycotton in Cork, Rory cooks Sardines Tangier Style, marinaded in Chermoula - a herb and spice relish.

The series will continue each Wednesday for six more weeks, available to view back on RTÉ Player.