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Simple chili paste recipe that goes well with everything

Tony Cappello

Tony Cappello

Last week I stumbled on a recipe for a North African chili paste called harissa, which is used as an ingredient to incorporate into soups, pastas, and other recipes, and I tweaked it a bit to use as an everyday sauce.
 
The recipe calls for a variety of dried or fresh red chili peppers to be softened and blended but I found the easiest method was to use one 12 oz jar of roasted red peppers, drained and rinsed, and 4 to 6 habanero peppers (depending on your tolerance) to add heat.
 
The rest of the ingredients are as followed:
 
1/2 cup chopped onions
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon juice of fresh lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt to taste
 
Soften the onions, garlic, and habs in a pan then combine all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz until you have a smooth paste. Transfer the paste into the empty red pepper jar and store in the fridge. You'll notice the oil will separate from the paste the following day so you just have to give it a stir before serving. I'm not sure what the shelf life will be but it doesn't take me more than 4 or 5 days to finish the entire jar.
 
Enjoy
 
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I love Harissa. I have always bought it because it's relatively cheap and easy. lol
I think I need to try your recipe except I will roast my own Red Peppers and use my homemade Curry Powder.

Sounds awesome! Thanks for sharing this.

And Welcome to THP!
 
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Scoville DeVille said:
I love Harissa. I have always bought it because it's relatively cheap and easy. lol
I think I need to try your recipe except I will roast my own Red Peppers and use my homemade Curry Powder.
Sounds awesome! Thanks for sharing this.
And Welcome to THP!
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Do you grind your own curry leaves?? I have been wondering about doing that. Sorry for the thread hijack :D
 
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Curry powder is not from curry leaves, curry leaves are used whole, like bay leaves. "Curry powder" is a mixture of various spices.
 
Yeah, harissa is good stuff.
 
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That's a great selection of spices you've got there. I'm glad you guys liked my recipe. I also wanted to add that the original harissa recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of olive oil, which makes the sauce a bit thinner, but I like mine nice and chunky so feel free to add more olive oil if you feel like 1 tablespoon isn't enough.
 
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Scoville DeVille said:
Curry Leaves FTW! :rofl: I need to get me a Curry tree.
Jamaican Curry powder. (The only one i have pictures of)
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Star anise is one of the coolest looking spices.
 
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Tony Cappello said:
That's a great selection of spices you've got there. I'm glad you guys liked my recipe. I also wanted to add that the original harissa recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of olive oil, which makes the sauce a bit thinner, but I like mine nice and chunky so feel free to add more olive oil if you feel like 1 tablespoon isn't enough.
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That was all the spices that went into my Jamaican Curry powder. It's awesome. Thanks for the O.O. tip, or is it EVOO? I am looking forward to making this for sure.
 
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Scoville DeVille said:
That was all the spices that went into my Jamaican Curry powder. It's awesome. Thanks for the O.O. tip, or is it EVOO? I am looking forward to making this for sure.
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The recipe says olive oil but I've been using EVOO but I don't think it makes a difference since I'm not heating up the oil so you can probably even use infused olive oil to add more flavor. For my next batch I'm going to try EV avocado oil and maybe add another spice to the mix.
 
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This recipe isn't really specific since curry powder is very vague, however, for N. African flavors, you could mix all or any of garlic, ginger, coriander, fennel seed, cumin, piri-piri, and peppercorns.
 
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The Hot Pepper said:
This recipe isn't really specific since curry powder is very vague, however, for N. African flavors, you could mix all or any of garlic, ginger, coriander, fennel seed, cumin, piri-piri, and peppercorns.
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Yes! Yes! Those would be awesome flavor choices. Jamaican Curry, (at least mine) would not be the best choice for this Harissa.
 
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