Harissa

Try rubbing this fiery Tunisian chile paste on meats or fish before searing or grilling, or stir a small spoonful into some mayonnaise for a sandwich spread with a kick. Also mix a dollop into butter and toss with steamed veggies or couscous. The hotter the chiles, the hotter the harissa, so experiment and use sparingly to taste.

-Heat a heavy small fry pan (cast iron works best) to medium hot.

-Throw in dried 1 TBS cumin seeds, 2 TBS coriander seeds and 1 tsp caraway seeds and shake vigorously for a couple minutes until they start to 'just pop' and become fragrant.

-Immediately get out of hot pan into a pestle/blender/coffee grinder and grind to a fine powder.

-Now in the empty hot dry ‘seed’ pan, throw in 4 smoked chile peppers, such as ancho or chipotle and 8 dried red chile peppers, such as New Mexico or cascabel.

-Shake/toss for a 1-2 minutes until they become fragrant.

-Immediately get them out the hot pan and also grind to a fine powder.

-Combine ground seeds and chiles with 1 whole head of finely minced fresh garlic, ½ cup olive oil and ½ tsp salt.

-Store in refrigerator in tightly sealed glass jar.