Zaalouk - Creamy Moroccan Tomato And Eggplant Dip

Zaalouk is a Moroccan eggplant and tomato dip with warming spices, fresh herbs and olive oil. It's a delicious seasonal summer appetizer and goes great with flatbread or toasted sourdough.

Author Charlé Visser

Course Appetizer, Salad

Cuisine Moroccan, North African

Ingredients

Instructions

For the eggplant

Roast in the oven at 250 °C or 482 °F until soft. Takes about 20 minutes. If it needs longer, give it longer. The eggplant needs to be fully cooked and soft.
When cooked, remove the flesh and roughly chop it up. Set aside until needed.

For the tomatoes (optional step. You can also chop the tomatoes whole, seeds and all. It's just more rustic.)

Blanch, peel and de-seed the tomatoes. Press the juice from the seeds by rubbing through a sieve. Dice into large pieces and set aside along with the juice.

Cooking the zaalouk

Heat a skillet with oil until it just starts to smoke. The eggplant and tomatoes are still watery, and we want to condense that all into a homogenous creamy chunky stew.
Once the skillet is hot, turn the heat to medium and add the eggplant along with the garlic. Cook and stir for a few minutes, taking care not to burn it.
Next, add the tomatoes along with the juice if you used fresh tomatoes. Let it stew for a few minutes until they start breaking up a bit.
Add the spices along with the salt and sugar. Cook a bit longer.
When it's ready it's should not be wet but nice and creamy. You'll know when it's ready.
Give it a taste and adjust the seasoning if you want. Add the lemon juice little by little according to your taste along with the chopped herbs. Let it cool down to room temperature.

Serving

Put into a bowl or keep in the pan before drizzling with plenty of olive oil, adding some more herbs and freshly cracked black pepper. Serve with flatbread or flour tortillas along with optional dukkah or za'atar seasoning.

Notes

Tomatoes — You can use tinned tomatoes, but sweet seasonal varieties work best. Make sure to adjust the acidity by adding sugar to your taste.
Eggplant — Use firm, good-quality eggplants. Oversized, hollow-feeling eggplant will lose a lot of water and not add much flavor.
Spices — For best results, toast whole cumin and grind in a spice grinder.
Herbs — You can use whatever herbs you want. Try tarragon, chervil, dill, and chives.
Sugar — The taste needs to be balanced, as the tomatoes will make it acidic.

Storage instructions — Store it airtight in the fridge for up to 4 days or up to 6 months in the freezer. Reheat on the stove or microwave.

Top Tip — Zaalouk is even better the next day once the flavors have time to mellow together.

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