- Have you ever tried harissa?
It's a North African chili paste
made of chili peppers, garlic, and few warm spices.
Mine is not too spicy.
It's deep with flavor and a little bit smoky.
It's absolutely delicious.
I use it on chicken, meat, veggies, and even fish.
I'm Suzy with TheMediterraneanDish.com.
Let's make some harissa.
(funky music)
The star ingredient of harissa paste is chili peppers.
I'm using dry Mexican chili peppers.
They're not too hot,
and I can control how spicy the harissa paste will turn out.
We'll take our peppers here.
These have been soaked in hot water for 30 minutes or so,
so now they're kinda nice and soft.
I drained the water completely.
So remove that top part and then kinda slice it open
so I can see where the seeds are.
The seeds will be removed for this.
As much as you can.
It's not a big deal if you don't get them all.
And of course, the seeds are where a lot of the spice is,
so if you want it spicy,
you can leave a bit of the seed in.
Everything is gonna go in my food processor,
so you just kinda go about cleaning out the seeds,
removing the stems, and that's about it.
So the way that I control the heat in my harissa paste
is by adding cayenne pepper.
If I felt like it's not spicy enough,
then I can control it that way.
I just like mine tolerable,
so that we can use it on all sorts of things.
So remember that first step of soaking your dry peppers
is so important.
Otherwise you can't make this recipe right, so.
30 minutes in hot water, covered,
until they're nice and soft like this.
Okay, really, the hard part is done, you guys.
From here, we're gonna add all of the rest
of our flavor makers for this harissa paste.
So another pepper that I like to use here
is simply sweet red peppers from a jar.
So these have been roasted already.
I don't need to do anything to them.
So roasted sweet peppers, two large ones, are going in.
Next, we have a tomato paste.
About two tablespoons or so.
Tomato paste, not sauce.
So this is a lot thicker
and will give the harissa some umami
and a little bit of sweetness.
Then we have four garlic cloves.
And now my set of spices.
So these are warm North African spices,
starting with caraway seeds that have been nicely ground.
Coriander.
A couple teaspoons.
Cumin.
And by the way, you guys,
all of these spices are available at our shop,
TheMediterraneanDish.com.
Just hit the Shop tab when you get there,
and you'll find them.
Smoked paprika.
This is really where all of the smokiness
in my harissa paste comes from.
Just one teaspoon will do the trick.
And if you want to go for a little bit spicy,
then go ahead and add a dash of cayenne pepper.
This really allows you to control how much spice you like.
So you can start here,
and you can add to it a little bit later.
From here, I need a little bit of citrus,
so I'm using juice of one large lemon
or two tablespoons of lemon juice.
A dash of kosher salt is helpful, you guys,
to bring everything together.
Flavor party's about to go down right here, you guys.
All I have to do now is close this baby up
and run the food processor.
While it's running, I'm gonna add a good drizzle
of excellent extra virgin olive oil.
This will add good flavor
and it will bring everything together.
I'm using my Early Harvest Greek
extra virgin olive oil here.
Let's check it out.
Okay, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
It's got great texture, it smells wonderful,
and it's not too runny.
I promise, once you try this homemade harissa,
it's going to change the game for you guys.
You can put a little bit of it in your shakshouka.
You can make my harissa chicken.
I'm gonna share that recipe soon.
It is absolutely gorgeous.
All I do is put it in a jar
and seal it with a good bit of extra virgin olive oil.
This protects it from air
and keeps it well in the fridge for a few weeks.
Check out the recipe on TheMediterraneanDish.com.
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