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Pepper-loving cultures around the world developed techniques and recipes to preserve and eat them once they realized that chiles made almost everything more delicious. One of various chile sauces from North Africa, harissa combines fresh, roasted sweet peppers with dried chile powder and other spices, with extra virgin olive oil holding it together and providing a vehicle for the oil-soluble flavors. A squeeze of lemon adds enough acid to brighten it up.
You can use harissa as a condiment, spooning it on everything from beans to cooked vegetables to grilled fish. But it’s also great mixed with honey or pomegranate molasses and brushed on roasted squash or grilled meat.
Recipe
- 1 cup roasted red peppers
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- ¼ cup chile powder
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground caraway
- 1 teaspoon dried mint
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- juice of half lemon, about 2 tablespoons
Roasting the peppers adds more flavor, but this will still be tasty with roasted peppers from a jar. If you can’t find ground caraway, the seeds are common; I crush them a bit with a mortar and pestle.
You can chop the peppers finely by hand, then just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, but I prefer to use a food processor to blend everything to a coarse paste.
