Matbukha

Matbukha (Arabic: مطبوخة‎ maṭbūkhah) is a Moroccan cooked dish of tomatoes and roasted bell peppers seasoned with garlic and chili pepper. 

The name of the dish originates from Arabic and means "cooked salad". It is served as an appetizer, often as part of a meze. 

Serves ...

Ingredients:

🫒  1 cup of good quality olive oil

🍅  2 (28 oz) cans of quality whole (1600 gr) tomatoes

🫑  1 kg sweet red peppers — about 10 big ones (I like adding some Yellow/Orange ones too in order add nice colors to the end product)

🧄  10 garlic cloves

🌶️  1 spicy Jalapeño

🫑  3 tbsp of sweet paprika

🧂  Salt

Directions:

Out first task is to burn the peppers. You can do it over the stove with a big cask iron pan or in the oven but I prefer an oven.

Heat the oven to grill (high heat) and place the (whole) peppers in on a baking pan inside the oven.

When the peppers start to turn black turn them over — we want them burnt on all sides.

Tip: if you’d like to add a smoky flavor place the peppers on top of a rack and add some water and a bit of Liquid Smoke to the pan under it. This will give the peppers a sweet, smoky aroma.

Remove from the oven and wait ~15 min for the peppers to cool.

Do not wash in water, it’ll just wash their taste away…

I like to place them in a sealed container to keep all the juices from vaporising.

Peel the peppers from their burnt outer layer, remove the green stem and seeds and tear them apart by hand into into big pieces.

Emulsification!

In a heavy cask iron pot add the olive oil, peppers and paprika.

Start the stove on medium heat, stir.

When the oil starts to heat up, parts of the peppers start to melt into it and we get an emulsion of tastes.

Add the Jalapeños and stir until it color changes to bright green.

Add the garlic, and stir for about a minute.

Add the tomatoes and some salt and cook with the lid on for 1 hour.

Stir things around frequently so the tomatoes wont stick to the bottom.

Remove the lid and cook for 20 min more.

The purpose of this stage is to get rid of access liquids. We want to reach a consistency of a salad which should be something like Salsa.

The sauce is now thick and strong red with golden drops of olive oil spread on top — We have a Matbucha!

Let it cool to room temperature, the cooling process lets all the taste we extracted during cooking settle and blend together.

Once cool you can move it to a jar, pour some more olive oil on top and store in the fridge.