Tomaot & Hot Green Pepper Salad, Essaouira Style

Straight from the windswept coastal city of Essaouira, this Moroccan salad is sunshine on a plate.

Grilled green peppers bring a smoky sweetness, diced tomatoes and cucumber add cool crunch, and a scattering of hot chili peppers brings the heat. Everything gets tossed with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, garlic, and a whisper of cumin that ties it all unmistakably to North Africa.

Chill it for an hour and the flavors meld into something far greater than the sum of its parts. Serve it as a side, a starter, or scooped up with warm flatbread.

Kitchen Tips

• Grill the green peppers over an open flame or under the broiler until charred and blistered. That smoky char is essential to the Essaouira character of this salad
• Peel and seed the tomatoes for a cleaner texture. No one wants slippery tomato skins in a composed salad
• The hour in the fridge isn’t optional. The lemon and cumin need time to penetrate the vegetables and develop that signature Moroccan flavor
• Adjust the chili to your liking, but keep some heat in there. The contrast between the cool cucumber and the spicy pepper is what makes this salad sing