Harissa. What in the heck is harissa?

Harissa is a middle eastern paste. It is made with hot chili peppers and a variety of spices. It is a common ingredient in dishes served across North Africa and is especially associated with the cooking of Tunisia. In fact, UNESCO hgas recognized harissa as being central to Tunisia’s cultural and culinary heritage. In North Africa, harissa is used in soups, stews and couscous dishes. In the cauliflower recipe featured on this post, harissa is used to flavor the cream sauce.

If you are reading this and thinking to yourself that harissa is another one of those exotic ingredients that are difficult to find, fear not. It’s available at Trader Joe’s.

Here is the bottle I’m using at the moment. It’s a rose harissa I bought for an Ottolenghi recipe. This one IS a bit more hard to find. It has, of all things, rose petals in the mix.

This recipe is adapted from Ali Slagel’s cookbook I Dream of Dinner. You can order the cookbook through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.

Here is the recipe as I adapted it to my kitchen.

Best cookies in Los Angeles! Three years in a row!

That’s what the cookbook author says about these cookies and we can’t disagree.

This recipe is from Rose Wilde’s cookbook Bread and Roses. The cookbook is available through your local bookstore and from Amazon here.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. The measurements are in grams for this one, so you will need to use your scale. The bonus for measuring that way is more accuracy in your measurement of ingredients and fewer dishes and utensils to wash. 

“The Greeks invented that.”

That is my good friend Michelle’s answer to most “who invented?”  questions. It’s become a gentle joke among good friends.

Michelle is my Greek friend. She is in my Zoom group. We call ourselves The Seesters.

We’re eight mostly retired teachers from Southern California high schools. Most of us have known each other for years but we re-connected shortly before the pandemic and conjured up the Zoom group to try to keep our sanity during the pandemic.

It mostly worked. The sanity part, that is.

Now, we “talk” weekly, party occasionally and grab every opportunity to “do” local theatres, art galleries, restaurants and on and on.

Recently, we gathered around my table to celebrate Galentine’s Day and birthdays.

It was a potluck and we enjoyed an international menu that featured Mexican corn fritters and moles, Asian lettuce cups with a spicy tofu filling, an elegant hummus and crudité platter, a Moroccan b’stilla  (recipe on Blue Cayenne here) and ethereal lemon bars for dessert. It was a feast.

Michelle, of course, brought a Greek dish– a glorious Greek salad. 

Michelle’s salad was everything you want a Greek salad to be. Fresh. Beautiful. Scattered generously with creamy white chunks of tangy feta. Perfectly dressed with a Greek vinaigrette redolent in oregano. 

I’m a believer in Food Memory–the strong connection between the foods we eat and memories good and bad. For me, Michelle’s salad evoked memories of splendid summers spent in Athens many years ago where we always stayed at a modest hotel, The Plaza, near Victoria Square.

My husband and I used Athens as our travel hub every summer for years and got to know the people at the hotel. Litsa our maid, Kostas the manager, and Giorgos the Maitre’D always greeted us with open arms and watched over us during our stays with that over-the-top effusive hospitality for which Greece is famous. For those few wonderful moments, we were part of a Greek family.

There was always a Greek salad on our table at the Plaza– red and green with tomatoes and cucumbers and topped with a generous slab of feta and a sprinkling of briny Kalamata olives. The hand-typed white menu card on each table called it “Salade de Saison” and it was always “the season” for the Greek Salad at the Plaza.  

Michelle’s joke about Greeks and their inventiveness reminded me of another experience at the Plaza. My husband became ill during one visit and Kostas called a local doctor to our room. When my husband’s examination was completed, the doctor instructed me to go to a local pharmacy and buy some medicines and a thermometer. As I wrote down his instructions, I remember pausing and asking him for the Greek word for thermometer. “It’s a Greek word” was his somewhat pitying reply. It was my first “The Greeks invented that” moment. 

So, here is my beautiful, beloved, smart, vibrant, witty and compassionate Greek friend’s personal recipe for Greek salad.

Make it and keep in mind that, as Michelle would most certainly remind you, “The Greeks invented that!.”

Kali Oreksi! (Enjoy your meal.)