Morrocan cuisine employs chiles in a subtle way. Compared with, say, Burmese or Thai food, the heat, in the form of cayenne, paprika, chiles or pastes, such as harissa, is present but not by any means overpowering.
Like much of the cuisine of North Africa, Morrocan seasoning is complex and lavish in the use of dried spices. As in Indian cuisine, adding chiles allows all the individual spices to sing; without chiles, most heavily spiced dishes would sink into murkiness.
This was brought home to me by a recent visit to an (unjustly celebrated) Indian fusion restaurant in New York. Although everything was made with excellent ingredients and properly executed, there was something missing, a gustatory excitement that you could find in even the most humble storefront Indian restaurant.
A couple of hours after my meal, I realized what it was: the chef, probably French-trained and afraid of strong flavors, had made the mistake of toning down the use of chiles in all his food. The result was bland as well as muddy-tasting.
Harissa is my go-to condiment; at Olivea we use it in just about everything: as a binder, along with olive brine, sherry vinegar and olive oil, for our house-marinade olives; as a marinade for chicken or fish; mixed with aioli as a dip for fried chickpeas; and as a sauce for grilled vegetables or shrimp.
One of my former line cooks, Justen Ries, showed me how to make harissa. She learned it when she worked in the kitchen of a Moroccan restaurant. I’ve changed her recipe a little, adding tomato puree instead of fresh tomatoes and a touch of paprika at the end.
Try marinating olives with this recipe, or brushing it on fish or chicken before or after grilling. It’s also great stirred into a stew of dried beans.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Harissa
Makes about 1 quart.
Ingredients
2 small yellow onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
8 cloves garlic peeled
4 red peppers, stemmed, seeded, deribbed and coarsely chopped
2 jalapeño peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup tomato puree
Kosher salt, to taste
1 tablespoon hot paprika
3 tablespoons cumin seeds, toasted
Directions
In a food processor, puree the onions, and then remove. Repeat with the garlic, then the peppers.
In a heavy-bottomed 4 quart pot, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Sweat the onion puree with a pinch of salt for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sweat 1 minute. Add the peppers and sweat another 20 minutes. Add the tomato puree, reduce the heat to low and cook 20 minutes. Season with salt, paprika and cumin seeds. Cool, blend with a hand blender or a bar blender and refrigerate.
