ZAALOUK (Moroccan eggplant)

The good stuff:

Eggplants, when well cooked, are critical to vegan cuisine (in my opinion). Zaalouk happens to be a really delicious, dreamy Moroccan specialty that celebrates the wonderful eggplant. It was a big favourite at one my recent Supper Clubs.
Eggplants are a great source of fiber (good for digestion & to detoxify)
100gr of raw eggplant covers 30% of your Calcium DRV- who knew!
The skin of the eggplant (which you shouldn’t discard) contains essential phyto nutrients which improve blood circulation and nourish the brain.

You’ll need:

The process:

Preheat oven to 400F.
Wash the eggplants, pat dry, cut off the top part.
With a knife, prick the eggplant with small cuts (we are going to bake the eggplants and this is important so that the eggplant doesn’t explode in the oven!)
Wrap all the eggplants in aluminium (bunch them together) and bake the eggplants for 45 minutes.
During that time, you can do a few other things:
Drizzle some olive oil in a pan and cook the garlic cloves and tomatoes until soft.
Chop some cilantro and set aside.
At this point, you probably still have some time to kill (waiting for the eggplants) – so you can go play some music and boogie away in the meantime (or do something else!)
When your eggplants are ready, remove & dice into cubes. If there are sections that are overwhelmingly seedy- discard of them (they can be a tad bitter).
Add the eggplants to the pan and cook with the tomatoes, garlic.
Add paprika, cumin, cayenne, salt and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes
Transfer to a heat-resistant bowl and mash the mixture with a potato masher or a large fork- and transfer BACK to pan (to cook a little more)
Add some fresh cilantro and cook on medium heat for another 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

Notes:

There are many versions of Zaalouk floating on the internet- so Im not sure what is the authentic recipe, but they all contain the above ingredients and have similar cooking methods.
You can bake the eggplants a day ahead if you’re short on time 🙂