Harissa is a spicy north African sauce made from chiles, spices and other stuff. If you Google around the net, you can find many, many varieties.
I've bought it a couple times and they had bitter metallic flavors. Since I started making my own, it's been better. (Big surprise, right?)
So the core of this one's bulk is roasted red pepper. I went ahead and roasted a bunch of peppers since I was going to have the broiler on. I could have done this on the burner or the grill (I've done both) but this seemed easier.
So I put them under the broiler, and took them out every couple of minutes and turned them about a quarter turn and slid them back in. Once that was all good (defined by being deeply charred all around), I took them out and dropped them into a bowl that I tightly lidded so the skins could steam off a bit.
Once they cooled, I just rubbed all the charred skins off into the compost. Occasionally, there were little bits that I needed to sort of unpeel like a sticker, but mostly this was pretty easy. This is what I got out of two whole red bell peppers:
Many recipes you can find don't call for bell pepper. It's just hot and spicy. But I like the extra bulk and sauciness this provides. But it does need some chiles. Here's some of the other ingredients I added:
The chiles are: one dried Anaheim, a small handful of chiles de arbol, three little Thai chiles, a single Dundicot, and a spoonful of chipotle in adobo. Plus, I toasted some caraway and coriander and ground them into the mix. There's also garlic and some tomato.
I tore the top off each of the dried chiles and worked most or all of the seeds out and then poured some boiling water over them to get the rehydrated. At that point, everything went into the blender with a little olive oil.
Even with the bell pepper and the tomato diluting things, it's quite spicy. I have a little over a cup of this sauce that I can use in the next couple of weeks. It's delicious!
