What is zaalouk and what are Moroccan salads?

Zaalouk is my desert-island Moroccan dish, and the one I tell every guest to order on their very first lunch. It starts with whole aubergines and ripe tomatoes cooked down slowly with garlic, a good slick of olive oil, cumin, sweet paprika and a little fresh coriander until they collapse into a glossy, smoky, jammy purée. You eat it warm or at room temperature, scooped up with torn bread, and the flavour is rich, garlicky and gently spiced with a sweetness from the tomato that keeps you reaching back for more.

What people don't always realise is that zaalouk almost never arrives alone. A proper Moroccan meal opens with a constellation of small cooked salads, sometimes five or six little dishes crowding the table, and grazing across them is half the joy. Alongside zaalouk you'll often find taktouka — a soft salad of grilled green peppers and tomato — and bakoula, made from wild mallow or spinach stewed with preserved lemon and olives until dark and silky.

Then come the brighter ones: sweet glazed carrots tossed with cumin and orange, earthy beetroot in a light vinaigrette, blistered roasted peppers, and a simple chopped tomato-onion-coriander salad to cut through everything. Some are warm, some cool, some sweet, some sharp, and the contrast is exactly the point — you build each mouthful yourself with a piece of bread as your spoon.

My advice is to make a meal of these salads at least once, especially if you eat little meat — order a selection, a fresh bread basket and a pot of mint tea, and you have one of the most satisfying, vegetable-forward lunches in the country. I never tire of zaalouk, and I suspect you won't either.