Matbucha Salad
A slow cooked tomatoes and red peppers into full of flavor paste or dip, originated in North Africa
Equipment
- Tourne knife
- Plastic container with a seal
- Blender Stick (optional)
Ingredients
- 15 ripe red tomatoes
- 6 red bell peppers
- 2 Cups olive oil
- 4 tbsp Garlic confit you can use fresh sliced garlic but I found the confit to be stunningly delicious.
- 3 tbsp Sweet Paprika
- 1 tbsp Sea Salt
- 2 tbsp Hot chili oil (optional) skip if you don't like spicy
Instructions
How to prep the peppers
- Preheat the oven to 200°C degrees, place bell peppers on a baking tray with parchment paper, and massage each pepper with cooking oil with your hands.
- Bake the peppers until the peal is burnt on all sides, you need to turn them on the other side once one side is done.
- When the peppers are browned, put them in a plastic container with a cover. A plastic bag also works as long as you can close it. The purpose of it is - so the peppers will cool off while keeping their juices and the peel can come off easily.
- When they completely cool open the container and peel each pepper. also remove the stem and the seeds. avoid washing in water, as it will rinse the pepper juices and flavor. Put all the clean flash in a bowl and try to save the juices left from the peppers in the same bowl.
How to prep the tomatoes
- there are few ways to peel tomatoes: the short way is with a potato peeler, but the French will kill me for that so here is the traditional way.
- In a large pot bring water to boil. also prepper a bowl with ice water.
- With a tourne knife remove the stem of the tomatoes and do an x scorch on the bottom of each tomato. This process called tomatoes concasse you can probably find a video on it.
- Blanch the tomatoes for 1 minute and then transfer to a bowl with ice water. You will see the peal starting to detach so all you need to do is to peel it off.
- Once pealed, dice them if you want the dish to be chunky, or use a blender stick to blend them if you want it saucier, each time I do it differently.
- Place the tomatoes, sauce or chunks, in a large (preferably wide) pot and let simmer on very low heat. add 1 tsp of paprika and 1 tsp of salt so the liquids start coming out. Once you start cooking you need to stir every 15-20 minutes for about 2-4 hours until all the liquids are completely gone and it's almost like a jam.
- If the tomatoes are hard and they ran out of water you can add water to them.
- Cut the peeled bell peppers into strips and add them to the tomatoes with the pepper juices. Don't forget to stir from time to time so it won't burn in the bottom.
- When the tomatoes are molten like a paste and there are no more liquids, add the hot chili oil, 1 cup of olive oil, the rest of the salt and paprika, and the garlic confit. cook for another 15 - 20 min to incorporate the flavors.
- Usually, it takes me 3-4 hours to cook both this dish and a pastry or bread that goes with it so if you host friends you can do it a day before. I promise you they will talk about this meal for a while;)