Homemade Harissa

[Music] hi guys i'm laura vitale and on this episode of learning kitchen we are making a homemade harissa harissa is just it's a delicious very delicious when you have a good one north african like spicy hot sauce if you will i was actually first introduced to this when i went to italy for the first time back after a decade in like 2010 or something like that when you go to a lot of pubs and restaurants in italy they serve harissa with lots of different things i guess it's sort of like how we would serve hot sauce my brother mixes her wrists up with mayo and dips his french fries in him i thought he was insane but i was very intrigued um because everybody eats it so i tried it fell in love however buying harissa at least here in the u.s or at least where i can get it from even if i order it online it's never really good so i thought to myself i'm gonna make a homemade version so after doing lots of research i came up with my own recipe and it is so good it's dynamite okay you can keep it on hand to do just about everything in like roast vegetables put it on fish which i'll show you in a specific future recipe coming very very soon um literally it's good for a multitude of things use it just the way you would use like a chili sauce or hot sauce right let's work on the chilies first because i gotta get these going what i have here are some guajillo chilis which is very mild ancho chiles these are all obviously dried and i've got some arbol chile these are spicy so i'm only using two but i'm not de-seeding them so they're gonna bring a lot of heat and all together along with a roasted bell pepper is going to be the base that's going to make your chili sauce okay first things first i'm a realist i've been on a long time you need to de-pat these and you need to basically take out their seeds i'm going to show you with a smaller one they come very dry and they're kind of hard i tend to just break them apart like that and then you have to open them up and you want to get rid of all those seeds and any um any ribs or anything and then you're going to give them a really good rinse if they break up please don't throw the piece of chili away it just sometimes they come really really dry and then sometimes they're more pliable it also depends on the kind of chili that you're getting like these ancho ones they're a little drier but like let me show you the gua heels which are much more pliable and easy to work with i'll show you this one these are much more pliable see i could essentially and i order mine online because i try to get the best that i can and i also can't typically find them in my regular grocery store you just take out the seeds on any veins and now i'm going to do the rest of them and then i'm going to give them a really good rinse and wash my eyeball as well chilies are cleaned washed rinsed i've got a pot here with boiling water i'm going to add the chilies in you have to rehydrate them they need to reconstitute so add them in all of them including the arbor that we left whole and i'm just going to turn the heat off and i'm going to let them sit in there for about 15 minutes 15-20 minutes turn off let it sit i'll get everything else out which is really not much you'll need some spices you need cumin and coriander i prefer whole cumin and whole coriander seeds i ran out but i always have dry which is wonderful and eat more easily available if you live in the middle of nowhere like i do i'm gonna peel my red pepper i'm gonna grab garlic lemon olive oil plenty of salt and my food processor and some tomato paste so i'm going to do all that and let me move on chillies are still steeping they're just about done let's move on to everything else i'm going to take my ground spices even though they're ground i still want to bloom their flavor because they're not really going to touch any heat so i'm going to go ahead and add them to a skillet and i'm just going to basically toast them until they become really really fragrant i would be doing the exact same thing if i was working with whole spices and then i would grab my mortar and pestle and i would just grind them until they were pulverized but since i'm using ground i would be trying to be very slick to grab my spatula but i can't see down there i want to do the same thing to this because i want like i said i want the flavors to really be bloomed and wonderful and the oils and the spices will just oh they already smell incredible incredible when i make homemade harissa i always like to make an extra batch to bring to my aunt marie my aunt marie is a vegetable fanatic she also loves all kinds of different cooking like ethnic cooking i mean you name it she loves it she loves harissa she says she puts it in an ice cube tray and then anytime she wants a little bit of heat here and there she'll add it to soups and vegetables she primarily eats a lot of vegetables soups things like that grains and she says it makes everything better so i'm going to save some of this for her so don't you worry anyway to a food processor i'm going to add the peppers i also have the tomato paste in there because i didn't want to get another container dirty remember that was one roasted pepper that i peeled and i'm going to smash four cloves of garlic and i'm going to add them in and i'm going to start getting that going while that's going i am going to drain my steeped chilies i'm going to just set them aside until i am ready to add them to this but this is a really easy easy recipe and once you make it once you'll understand why buying it store-bought is just that's just like it's not good it's just not good compared to this okay let it go already smells so good and we didn't really do much okay now take your spices now that they've bloomed they smell sensational i'm making my mouth water so good so good okay i'm gonna move this closer you wanna make sure that you drain your chilies really well because you don't want all that water and i kind of just take my tongs and i just sort of squeeze and if some there's going to be some seeds in there but that's all good add them in along with a couple tablespoons of fresh lemon juice i just squeeze it through my fingers to catch any of the seeds i'm just going to do a half of a lemon for now because this is real juicy let me real juicy and a really good pinch of salt don't be shy don't be shy grinding of black pepper and then as this is going i'm going to stream in about a half a cup of olive oil not extra virgin regular olive oil so let this and then i shrink oh yeah that color is phenomenal i can smell the spices i can smell the chilies i can smell everything and when you make it from scratch which by the way i am not telling you to make every condiment from scratch i tasted this for seasoning and it's perfect it doesn't need any more lemon doesn't need any more salt i am not asking you to make every condiment from scratch if you want to more power to you also just realize this ball is a little bit small but it's okay i'll put the rest in a bigger bowl this however is so worth making from scratch just pretend it's not there this is so worth making from scratch it is divine it's much more to me than a condiment it is i could eat that with a chip it is delicious it hits all the right notes cover this pop it in the fridge for a while before you use it you want those flavors to really come together it is dynamite you will love it granola in the kitchen.com for the written recipe i would love for you to give this a try add it to anything and everything from mayo to wraps to dipping your french fries in it to fish to veggies to roast everything hope you enjoy spending time with me and i'll see the next one bye [Music]

Channel: Laura in the Kitchen

Views: 56,349

Keywords: chef vitale, chef laura vitale, laura vitale, chef laura, homemade harissa, how to make harissa, easy harissa recipe, best harissa, homemade food, recipes, cooking shows, cooking videos

Id: NUhhwZLxHOM

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 08 2022