Boulfaf (بولفاف)

On Eid al-Adha, the first thing many Moroccan households want from the fire is not the grand tagine, it is the liver. The sheep has just been divided, the courtyard is busy, and the liver is too tender and too perishable to wait. You season it with cumin and salt, wrap it in the sheep's own lacy caul fat, and put it over coals while the day is still moving around you.

The whole dish lives in that wrapping. Liver dries quickly when it meets heat, but caul fat melts over it and bastes each cube before disappearing into crisp little edges. First you set the liver over the fire in large pieces so it firms and takes the charcoal taste, then you cut, season, wrap, and skewer. Do not bury it in spices. La balance est dans les yeux, the scale is in the eyes: each piece should be touched by cumin, not hidden under it.

Boulfaf is eaten standing around the brazier, or carried to the table on a shared platter with khobz torn and ready. Make more than you think, because someone will pass by, smell the coals, and become a guest. Une table, c'est une porte qu'on laisse ouverte, a table is a door you leave open, and on Eid that door opens early.