Harissa
Serves: n/a
Approx cost: €2
Approx calories (per tsp): ~15
Approx preparation and cooking time: 20 mins
If you love a bit of kick in your food you’re going to love harissa. I find the ready-made harissa you can buy in cans good, but they use the traditional type of chillies, which I find results in a dish which is brutally spicy. When I make harissa I tend to use antillean habanero chillies – slightly sweeter, and very fragrant, but still perfectly capable of wrecking your day if you rub your eyes while chopping them. Eat with bread or cheese or use a rub for meat, fish and vegetables, before roasting/grilling! Give it a try and tell me what you think!
Ingredients
- Ingredients you’ll need for this dish
- ~150g Antillean Habanero Chillies (if unavailable, substitute with similar spicy red chilli)
- ~140g Tomato Concentrate
- 3-4 cloves Garlic
- 2 tsps Ground Cumin
- 2 tsps Caraway Seeds
- 2 tsps Salt Flakes
- 3 decilitres Olive Oil
You’ll also need
- A Pestle and Mortar
- A Blender
Instructions
- Start by washing and cutting the tops away from the chillies. Cut each chilli in half lengthways and carefully remove all the seeds – you might want to try and wear gloves for this part!
- Set aside while place the caraway seeds into the Pestle and Mortar and grind. You won’t be able to crush them completely but do your best to smash them up a bit and release the flavours.
- Peel the garlic and place with the chillies, caraway seeds, salt flakes, cumin, tomato concentrate and 2 decilitres of Olive Oil in the Blender (or Food Processor) and blend until you have obtained a smooth paste – You may need to periodically stop and remove the lid and push any chunks down back towards the blades again to ensure even blending.
- When done, transfer to a suitable sized bowl or container. Pour the other 1 decilitre of Olive Oil on top so that the harissa is well covered. This will serve to keep out the air, thus making it last longer. Cover with foil or film and store in the refrigerator when not being used. You can use this for many things – spreading on bread, rubbing into meats, fish, vegetables such as aubergine, or even eating it with cheese! Enjoy!
Nom nom
3 Comments
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British guy, living in France since 2005, exploring my way through the culinary world - always eager to learn and try new things! Come along with me for the ride - check out my recipes 
This looks great. A worrying pile of chillies though. As in very large and scary looking.
I have found the best way to remove chilli heat from hands is not to bother with gloves, but to just IMMEDIATELY wash my hands with fairy washing up liquid after chopping the chillies. It seems to work. No idea why. I discovered it by accident. Clearly much more like paint stripper than normal soap…
Haha, I tried this… I tried a lot actually. Someone said rub lemon juice over your hands to get it off… so I did. Olive Oil, lemon juice, salt, washing, tried it all and it never seems to work for me
Although we can't get Fairy Liquid here, so I tried other brands. Maybe it's something specific to Fairy though!
Don't worry about the chillies… the good thing is, as long as the harissa is well covered with a layer of oil it keeps for ages in the fridge and only improves as the days go by!
Sorry Charles, forgot to add that you then refrain from touching anything for 24 hours, especially face, eyes, other sensitive areas. This ensures that you don't find out that the fairy liquid trick doesn't in fact work.