Cooking eggplant over an open flame until it collapses into a silky, smoke-tinged heap is a tradition that dates back millennia and spans cuisines throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa—particularly Morocco, where zaalouk is everywhere.
Behind the Recipes
Moroccan Zaalouk Turns Eggplant to Silk
Plush, garlicky zaalouk is Morocco’s popular anytime meze dip.
By and
Published June 4, 2024.
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To make the ubiquitous meze, Moroccan cooks slow-cook whole eggplant until the skin lightly chars and the flesh softens. Then they mash and sauté it with tomatoes; garlic; spices such as cumin, paprika, and cayenne; cilantro; lemon juice; and plenty of olive oil.
The consistency of zaalouk—one of the world’s greatest expressions of eggplant’s velvety potential—makes it incredibly versatile. There’s nothing more satisfying to scoop up with crusty bread or sink a fork into.
Nowadays cooks use a variety of methods to coax eggplant into that custard-like state, but grilling and broiling offer the benefit of charring the skin and thus imbuing the flesh (and the zaalouk) with smoky bitterness and depth.
I worked with both approaches for indoor/outdoor flexibility, poking the eggplant (about 1½ pounds) before cooking to create steam vents lest the moist heat in the flesh build up and rupture the skin, making a mess. The key was keeping the cooking temperature moderate enough that the eggplant had time to soften throughout.
On a grill, that meant a medium-hot fire; in the oven, I positioned the rack low and away from the broiler element. After about 25 minutes with a turn halfway through, the eggplant had lightly charred all over and yielded to a gentle squeeze.
Science: The Appeal of Waiting to Peel Eggplant
Why cook eggplant skin-on only to peel it after cooking? Here are three good reasons.
- Satiny Texture: The skin not only protects the flesh from drying out but actually also encourages it to turn satiny: The flesh steams inside its skin, causing its pectin and hemicellulose to dissolve into the eggplant’s moisture and create its famously plush texture.
- Intact Structure: Skin-on eggplant holds its shape as it softens—particularly important when cooking over live fire, where food can slip through the grate.
- Smoky Flavor: The charred skin undergoes pyrolysis and carbonization, which break down its flavor compounds into smaller molecules that taste deeply roasty, tarry, and smoky. Even though the skin gets peeled away, the porous flesh absorbs its char flavor, giving the finished dish complexity and depth.
Once it had cooled, I peeled and coarsely chopped the eggplant and then set it aside while preparing the rest of the dish. (Conveniently, the eggplant prep can be done up to a day ahead of making zaalouk.)
I briefly toasted the garlic and spices in some olive oil in a skillet before adding chopped tomatoes, which I had peeled first to ensure that no chewy bits of skin distracted from the meze’s silkiness. One pound was enough to add vibrancy without diluting the eggplant.
I mashed and simmered the tomato mixture alone until the pieces were soft and their juices mostly evaporated; then, after adding back the eggplant with some cilantro, I continued mashing and cooking the mixture until it was smooth and mostly dry. I added lemon juice, transferred it to a shallow serving bowl, and gilded it with olive oil.
It was faintly smoky, bright, redolent with garlic, and downright velvety.
