Sunday, May 9, 2010

Homemade Harissa

Happy Mother's Day! My mom took a shift at work today so she won't be off untill dinnertime when we will order her a pizza. Her request! She's not a fussy lady, she likes everything simple. Pizza is her favorite treat and that's what she'll have. Since I didn't have to cook for her or the family today, I had time to experiment in the kitchen. I was flipping through "The Essential Mediterranean Cookbook" today and came across a harissa recipe. Harissa is a North African chili paste that is fiery hot and flavored with things like cumin, coriander, caraway and mint. I had all the ingredients so I decided to make a jar for the fridge.


Here are all the ingredients: olive oil, red chilies which had been soaking in hot water for an hour, garlic and spices: mint, coriander, caraway and cumin. All of this gets thrown in a food processor.


I guess it depends on what kind of chilies you use to determine what the color will be. Mine was a bright orangey red and I used de arbol chilies.


I filled a little jar which had been washed in hot soapy water and dried in an oven for 20 minutes. It's kind of cool that I made my own. It cost me pennies and it'll last for about 6 months. Now I have this spicy condiment to use with dishes like couscous, soups, Moroccan stews, bean salads and pastas. Here's a good pasta recipe that uses harissa.

5 comments:

Rikki Cupcake said...

That sounds super yummy. I haven't ever tried Harissa but after seeing how it is made, I am going to give it a go! Thanks for the inspiration.

Sindy said...

Looks delicious! I like the spice mix.

Cantino said...

yum! did you add the water the chiles had been soaking in as well? this reminds me of the bright orange sauce at my favorite taco cart.. arbol, garlic, a little salt and veg oil.
curious about how you came up with "6 months". what is it about this sauce that will keep it fresh for that long?

kmouse said...

cantino,
I did not add the water that the chilies had been soaking in. It's just the chilies, oil and spices. The recipe that I used said it would keep for 6 months in fridge as long as you top it with olive oil after every use.

Cantino said...

that's an awesome tip, thanks!