- Ingredients: 500g fresh red peppers; 4 soup-spoons cumin seeds; 3 soup-spoons caraway seeds; 3 soup-spoons coriander; 1 soup-spoon green aniseed; 4 cloves garlic; 10 leaves mint; 20g powdered cayenne pepper; 1 clove; 2-3 pinches of cinnamon; 100ml olive oil; salt.
- Steam the red peppers for 10 minutes. Dry-heat the seeds of cumin, caraway, coriander and green aniseed in a small pan until a delicious aroma is given off. This allows all the flavours to come out. Then put it in a mortar and leave to cool.
- Peel the garlic cloves, take out the germ, and chop finely. Top and tail the peppers, take out the seeds and cut out the white sides to make it less spicy. Cut the peppers into cubes. Chop the mint. Add the cayenne, cinnamon and clove.
- In the mortar, crush all the ingredients with the pestle to obtain a homogeneous paste. Add the olive oil and stir well.
- Put the harissa in a glass jar, cover it with about one tablespoon of olive oil, put a cap on the bottle and put it in the fridge. It will last for several months.
Nadine Akalai, head chef, Momos, Heddon Street, London W1