Sunday, July 28, 2013

Hot for Harissa

Late to the party is a good way to describe me and food trends. Is harissa still even trendy, or has the hot sauce of the moment shifted to piripiri, sriracha, or something else?

We had a lot of chillies in the last two or so months. The ziplock bag in the freezer was full, so I started threading them on to string to dry out.

When the string got full and the chillies kept coming, Andy and I decided we needed to make some chilli sauce. A few of my cookbooks had recipes, but I can't go past Dynise Balcavage's recipes. Urban Vegan has a harissa recipe with aniseed, so I made a batch of that. And I fell in love. So did Andy. The jar is almost empty in the fridge, so I'll have to make a new batch soon.

I have used it to spice up some pasta with tahini sauce, kale, zucchini and tomatoes.

Kari came to the harissa party late with me, and posted this recipe using harissa powder. I made some small changes to suit what we had - and also, because I mostly remembered the recipe and didn't feel like looking it up. Chickpeas and sweet potatoes got smashed together with harissa paste and other veggies, and fresh coriander.

For dinner we ate it hot in wraps, and the leftovers were really great the next day in salad.

Finally, harissa butter made a delicious base for a kale pizza. Spicy, hearty with the kale, and accompanied by a less spicy, garlic&rocket&cherry tomato pizza.

Even though I'm late, the harissa party is still hot and happening, so, better late than never!

4 comments:

Hannah said...

Can I have some of your chillies, please and thank you? This all sounds so good.

Joey said...

I love harissa! I'm with you - doesn't matter if we turned up late, I can't see an end to it yet! My favourite thing with harissa is roasting some new potatoes and then five minutes before they're cooked, stir in some harissa and finish off baking - yum! Any plans for the rest of the chilli? Sambal olek?!

Kari said...

I don't think we're late Theresa, I think we're just having our own party together ;) I am really impressed with your string of chillis - what a cool wall feature! - and with you making harissa from scratch. I'm glad you liked the chickpea/sweet potato mix too!

Mel said...

I've been in harissa love for years and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Well done on making it from scratch, I'm going to keep this in mind to do during next chilli season as I usually buy a pre-made harissa paste. Love the thought of harissa butter on pizza - yummo!

I noticed the update about Marley on your last post. Sorry to hear that it didn't work out for all of you - it's great that she was able to go back to her old home temporarily though. *hugs*