Tunisian cooked salad — slow-cooked tomatoes and roasted peppers

pareve Tunisian Jewish · regular · 115 min, including 35 hands-on

The Tunisian version of matbucha: grated fresh tomatoes and roasted, peeled peppers, slowly cooked in oil with garlic, caraway and harissa. A glossy, deep-red kemia, boldly garlicky and spicy, to serve warm or cold with bread. The Moroccan matbucha in the recipe collection is milder, made with peeled tomatoes and green chilli.

Ingredients for two

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 230°C. Put the whole peppers on a baking tray and roast for 25–30 minutes, turning twice, until the skins blacken and blister on all sides (or char them directly over a gas flame). Meanwhile, halve the tomatoes and grate the flesh on the coarse side of a grater over a mixing bowl; discard the skins and keep all the pulp and juice. Peel the garlic and slice thinly.
2. Put the roasted peppers in a bowl, cover with a plate and leave for 10 minutes: the steam loosens the skins. Peel by hand, never under running water, which would wash away the roasted flavour. Remove the stalks, seeds and membranes, then cut the flesh into 1 cm strips.
3. Heat 40 g oil in a heavy-based 24 cm sauté pan over a medium heat. Add the pepper strips and 2 g salt; cook for 3–4 minutes, stirring, until glossy and fragrant. Add the sliced garlic and stir for 1 minute: it should turn just pale golden without browning. Add the tomato purée, harissa, paprika and caraway; cook for 1 minute, stirring, until the oil is red and fragrant. Add the tomato pulp and remaining 3 g salt.
4. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a medium-low heat: small bubbles should remain visible across the surface. Reduce uncovered for 45–55 minutes, stirring every 8–10 minutes, then every 2 minutes towards the end. If the pulp is still watery after 40 minutes, increase the heat slightly and stir more often. It is ready when the tomatoes have lost their water, the peppers are meltingly soft and a spoon drawn through the mixture leaves a clear trail that stays open. If the base catches before the vegetables are tender, lower the heat and cover for 5 minutes.
5. Taste a small spoonful once it has cooled: the tomatoes should be sweet, the garlic mellow and the caraway distinct. Adjust the salt if needed and, if the tomatoes lack acidity, add the lemon juice and cook for another 2 minutes. Take off the heat when red oil reappears around the edges of the pan; stir in the remaining 10 g oil to give the salad a gloss.
6. Transfer to a shallow bowl and leave to cool for 15 minutes before serving warm, with bread to mop up the sauce; a hard-boiled egg and a few olives alongside make a complete kemia spread. For a cold kemia, make it the day before (see tips).

On your plate

Cooking tips

The 115-minute timing is for serving warm; to serve cold, make it the day before: the flavours meld and improve. The peppers can be roasted and peeled the day before (the dish then takes 80 minutes). Out of season, replace the fresh tomatoes with 500 g tinned peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, and use the same cooking method. Keeps for 4–5 days in the fridge in a closed container under a thin layer of olive oil. The reduced yield is about 450–500 g: a small plateful per person, or enough to spread on bread. Do not confuse it with the milder matbucha in the recipe collection: caraway, harissa and roasted peppers distinguish this Tunisian version. Stir more often towards the end, as the tomatoes' natural sugars catch quickly.

Equipment : baking tray, heavy-based 24 cm sauté pan with a lid, coarse grater, mixing bowl with a plate to cover, spatula

Jewish Tunisian kemia: tomatoes and roasted peppers slowly cooked with garlic, caraway and harissa, reduced at length in a sauté pan.