The house south of us has always been a home to great cooks. First owner taught cooking classes and had quite a collection of cookbooks. During the moving purge, many of these cookbooks ended on the curb. Back then, in the previous century, I did not have too many of my own and was picking up whatever I could get my hands on. One book not really that impressive paperback, turned out to be the best pasta book I’ve tried to this day. Everything from this book works and looks as good or better than pictures. It is in this book for the first time I saw the word harissa. Internet search brought up a variety of recipes for this hot paste. Without much hesitation, I decided to combine them all in one and added everything that has been mentioned in all of these recipes together. Surprisingly, the result turned out to be amazing and I penciled my Tunisian invention into the book. For the last 20 years, I have been using this and only this recipe for harissa. The pencil is now fading out so it’s time to finally write this recipe out.
1 cup dried hot peppers, preferably Thai Dragon
3 tsp caraway seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
4 garlic cloves
3 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp soaking liquid from peppers
— Soak peppers in a very hot water for at least an hour, drain, and reserve 3 Tbsp of soaking liquid.
— In a dry skillet, heat all the seeds until they become fragrant and begin to smoke.
— In a bowl, using a hand blender, turn all the ingredients into a uniform paste.
