Earthworm

Streamlined to the ultimate for functional performance the earthworm blindly eats his way, riddling and honeycombing the ground to a depth of ten feet or more as he swallows.

~Anatomy Underfoot, J.-J. Condue

Prayer and Potatoes

Pray for peace and grace and spiritual food,
For wisdom and guidance, for all these are good,
But don't forget the potatoes.

Prayer and Potatoes, J. T. Peter

Most Beautiful Landscape

Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. ~~Francis Bacon

Harissa Xmas...

Manage with bread and salted butter until God brings something to eat with it. ~~Moroccan proverb

"It’s in a' can, it’s got to be good!" is what a friend told me at a dinner party after we had just seen Handel's Messiah performed at the Boston Symphony Hall. I rarely meet a little exotic can with some Cyrillic, Arabic, or logographic script on it that doesn’t appear in my pantry at least once. All are opened and tried, but few stay and become a standard part of the inventory next to the cans of tomato sauce, chipotles, and pineapple juice. And then there was “Harissa!”

This chili-based paste is exotic; it used in Moroccan and other Mediterranean cooking. It appears in roasted meat dishes, in condiments made of tomatoes, and my favorite the Moroccan Carrot Salad. The version I have now is made from red hot chili, garlic, coriander, cumin, and salt. And other recipes include cloves, caraway, and olive oil.

Although you will often see it added to barbeque sauces, smeared on poultry, added to yogurt marinades, and even as a dipping sauce, it shines with carrots. If you have vegetarians coming to dinner and want to spice up their life, this is your friend. Just look for an authentic recipe from Morocco, Tunisia, or Algeria. What follows is advice & my smashup recipe;

Go buy yourself a little can of “Harissa Du Cap Bon” at any small grocery that says “HALAL.” Then look for a can about the size of a tomato paste can that is typically metallic-yellow & red; the can will feature chili peppers, see picture*.

So start with the following ingredients:

Moroccan Carrot Salad

1 lb carrots
2 Tbl olive oil
1 garlic clove, large, minced
1 ½ tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp salt, kosher
1 tsp honey or sugar
½ tsp turmeric, ground
¼ tsp harissa, or to taste
1 lemon’s zest & juice
2 Tbl parsley, flat-leaf, fresh & chopped
¼ cup feta cheese, crumbled, or any other farmers cheese grated
12 olives, kalamata or others, pitted & halved (black olives in a pinch)

Prepare the carrots to your taste; grated them on a box grater or food processor, or slice & strip on a mandolin. You want to steam them a little to blanch them for maybe a minute, or just microwave them for 1-2 minutes. In a pan, heat the oil, then add the minced garlic for 30 seconds to infuse the oil. Add the cumin, turmeric, and salt to bloom the spices 15 seconds, then add the harissa and the honey; stir until paste forms, about 1 minute. Add the lemon juice, then the carrots, and the lemon zest, in that order. Stir and mix in the pan, it is okay if the carrots brown a little but just cook for 3-5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and chill in the fridge for a few hours or overnight; it’s better the next day.

When you’re ready to serve, remove from the fridge and bring to room temp; garnish with parsley, feta, & olives.
Variations:
Add some 1/8 tsp clove, a tsp of brandy, 1 Tbl sherry, change the cheese to any farmers cheese grated, garnish with 1-2 Tbl fresh cilantro, more garlic, or roast the garlic, roast/broil the whole carrots first, substitute limes, substitute orange, MORE harissa, and/or make your own harissa. You can use cider vinegar or any mild vinegar.

Off the reservation: balsamic vinegar, use some cooked parsnip, first roast or grill everything, balsamic & some beets, add some roasted nuts, substitute other types of sugars such as agave nectar, try some mace, more harissa. Hot, hot, hot! Oh, and you could just take it to heat it up to run it through a blender and server it like soup with garnishes on top, now that is a mash-up!

Have fun with this, and I hope you add a little can of harissa to your panty. This is a beautiful dish with the orange of the carrots, red-tinged harissa, green parsley, white cheese, and earthy olive colors.

Bon Appetite & Happy Holidays!

* In the majority world cans picture what’s inside them; i.e., peaches, pig, peppers, goat milk, guava, Gerber babies… lol. And the color patterns of various ingredients tend to be the same across brands for similar ingredients. Just think to be a Japanese worker in Morocco, or a Frenchmen in South Africa, or a Moroccan in France.

More information*:

• Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon This is the BEST cookbook for this cultural type of cooking. Hands-down it will get you started and on your way! This is my recommendation for a Christmas or Hanukkah gift. 
• Cooking at the Kasbah: Recipes from My Moroccan Kitchen Nice book! 
• The New Book of Middle Eastern Food I checked this out of the library once, I covet this book. 
• Mustapha's Moroccan Harissa The gourmet stuff! 
• Harissa in Tube - Puree of Dried Hot Peppers More like peasant stuff!

*Many of the links above are paid links and pay a commission if you buy something.  I make enough, so that I have a regular 9-5 job.  I own most if not all of the items recommended.