TM came over for dinner last night. She brought some tomatoes and bell peppers with her, so I added this simple salad to the dinner menu. It was relatively easy to do and made a nice addition to the spread.

Clockwise from left: beef and nectarine tagine; marak of cauliflower with tomatoes and olives; eggplant zaalouk; broth (from couscous); grilled red pepper salad; couscous with beef and leafy greens; beef bastilla with peppers, raisins, and olives.

Grilled Red Pepper Salad

Slightly adapted from The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert

Ingredients

• 2 large red bell peppers, grilled or broiled¹
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
• 1 small roma tomato or 3 Tbsp. canned tomato², diced
• 1 Tbsp. garlic paste³
• 1/8 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
• 1 tsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions

1. Lightly press the peppers between paper towels to remove excess moisture.
2. Sprinkle each pepper piece with salt and roll it up. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.
3. Unroll the pepper pieces and press once more to remove excess moisture.
4. Warm 1 Tbsp. of the oil over medium-low heat.
5. Add the pepper pieces and cook for 2-3 minutes.
6. Add the tomato, garlic, cumin, and parsley and cook for 20-30 seconds more.
7. Discard any residual cooking oil.⁴
8. Toss the peppers and tomatoes with the remaining 1 Tbsp. of oil.
9. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

---

¹ I broiled my peppers. I first quartered and seeded them. Then set them skin-side-up on a baking sheet and put them under the broiler, set on low⁵, until the skin was mostly black. Once blackened, they were removed from the oven and transferred to a plastic bag. Once cool enough to handle, the skin was removed. ^Back
2 The original recipe calls for peeling, seeding, and dicing the tomato. I just diced mine without doing the peeling or seeding. I was still happy with my results. Although I'm sure the tomato would've melded with the rest of the salad better if I'd followed the full instructions. ^Back
3 The original recipe actually calls for 1 clove of garlic "crushed to a paste with 1/4 tsp salt". Which, if I hadn't been in such a hurry, I might've tried. But I had a bunch of other dishes cooking and I don't have much practice with the molcajete yet, so I figured I should probably play it safe and go with garlic paste. (Of course, then I remembered that that would require opening a new jar of garlic paste and finding room in the fridge for it so, in the end, I just minced a couple cloves of garlic and tossed them in. But, in the future, I'd probably use garlic paste, either purchased or homemade.) ^Back
4 Whoops! Only just now realized that I completely missed this step when making the salad last night. Oh well, it was still tasty! ^Back
5 I find that when I set my broiler to high, the skin blackens before the peppers have cooked through and it also doesn't blacken evenly. Putting them in on low for a longer time seems to work better. YMMV. ^Back