Condiments

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How to make your own Tunisian-syle harissa — and why you'll be thrilled you did

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By Leslie Brenner

Sure, the stuff in the tube is pretty darn good. But there’s nothing like homemade harissa — North Africa’s signature brick-red, aromatic chile paste.

Just ask UNESCO, which granted harissa from Tunisia a place on its “intangible cultural heritage” list last December.

Tunisian-style harissa is incredibly vibrant, velvety and alive, and though only a few ingredients comprise it, it has remarkable depth of flavor.

Given its worldwide popularity, you’d think there’d be recipes for it all over the internet. You’d be wrong: While there are a gazillion recipes using it as an ingredient, there are shockingly few recipes out there — at least on Anglophile and Francophile sites — for making something like the real Tunisian deal at home.

It’s quite simple to make; there are only four basic ingredients: dried chiles, caraway seeds, coriander seeds and garlic. Plus salt, of course, and olive oil to preserve it. All the formulas you might turn up that include things like tomato, cumin, cilantro or lemon juice? Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not; hard to imagine that they improve upon the Tunisian classic.

It starts with dried chiles. In Tunisia they come from Cap Bon, Kairouan, Sidi Bouzid and Gabes, according to a film that was part of Tunisia’s submission for the UNESCO listing. Other sources mention Nabeul. In the Americas, the closest chiles to those are said to be guajillos and California chiles.

Snip them open with kitchen shears or scissors, shaking out the seeds and removing the stems. Seed removal is important for the best flavor in texture. Leave the seeds in, and you have a harissa that’s punishingly hot. Remove them, and you get incredible chile flavor, minus the fire. Instead of a tiny dab, you can swipe a piece of bread through harissa and relish it. Note that in the video, the woman making harissa from dried chiles shakes out the seeds before grinding them.

Rinse them, then soak them in boiling water for about 30 minutes, so they become soft and pliable. In Tunisia, a manual grinder — like a meat grinder — is traditionally used to grind the chiles. A food processor or blender does the job nicely.

For the spices — caraway and coriander seeds — grind them yourself for the best flavor. Sure, you could use pre-ground spices, but as long as you’re going to the trouble to make harissa, why cut corners?

Throw the spices, the rehydrated chiles, a few garlic cloves, salt and a little olive oil in the processor, and blitz away, until you have a smooth paste. That’s it. You have harissa. Maybe you’ll need to add a little water along the way.

Taste it, and swoon. Use it in a favorite recipe — go ahead, use more than you might if you were squeezing a tube. Stir it into a soup. Slather it on a roasted sweet potato. Or serve it with a tagine or couscous. Ready to store it? Put it in a jar, cover it with olive oil, and your supply will last in the fridge for months.

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Easy-to-make homemade mayo unlocks a world of French bistro and American classics (mind-blowing BLT, anyone?)

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By Leslie Brenner

In director Eric Bésnard’s film “Delicious,” released in the U.S. earlier this year (it’s “Délicieux” in French), a pivotal plot point revolves around mayonnaise.

The chef-protagonist, Pierre Manceron, pays a late-night visit to his ex-boss, the Duc du Chamfort, who had fired him months before because one of his courtiers objected to a dish. Chef Manceron finds the duke sitting miserably in his kitchen, not-enjoying a midnight snack of langoustines. “This is what I’m reduced to,” the duke says in subtitled French, joylessly spearing a langoustine. “I ingurgitate, but without enjoyment.” (OK, I would have translated that differently.)

“Good cooks are rare, Manceron,” the duke continues. “Your successor was a sauce spoiler. And the one that came after him could barely make a mayonnaise.” He looks away, wistful. “How the little things can evoke the greatest memories. Look at that,” he says, nodding toward his sad snack. “It’s hopeless. No balance, no invention, no harmony. Nothing.”

“May I?” says Manceron, reaching for a small bowl of oil. “This’ll take but a minute.” Into another bowl, he cracks an egg, pours in some oil and starts whisking with a small broom-like whisk. In two seconds, he has a beautiful mayonnaise — miraculously garnished with sliced chives.

The duke sticks his finger into the mayo, tastes. Closes his eyes, blissed-out. “And so you came to torture me?”

I won’t tell you where it all leads (and yes, it’s worth watching!), but the point is clear: There’s nothing like a great homemade mayo. And here’s the best part: It’s way easier to make than you might think. OK, maybe not quite as effortlessly as Manceron makes it happen. But easy enough that if you love it as much as I do, you might find yourself making it every week or two.

Homemade mayonnaise makes so many things so much better. A height-of-tomato-season BLT. A next-level tuna salad sandwich, using the best tuna packed in oil. Deviled eggs. Egg salad.

Or depart from American classics and try some French favorites, like Céleri Rémoulade — the salad of julienned celery root that’s a bistro classic.

Céleri Rémoulade — one of homemade mayo’s best party tricks

Or Macédoine de Légumes — a simple, parti-colored salad of diced and blanched carrots, haricots verts and turnips, plus peas, cloaked lusciously in good mayo.

Use your delicious homemade mayo straight-up for dipping leaves of boiled artichoke or dolloping onto poached shrimp, or whisk into it a bit of crème fraîche, paprika and sherry vinegar, and call it the best sauce ever invented for chilled asparagus.

Macédoine de Légumes - glamourous cafeteria food!

But wait — how do we achieve this?

J. Kenji López-Alt, of Serious Eats fame (now with The New York Times) has an ingenious method for making mayonnaise. A hand-blender creates a vortex that does all the work for you. Pour canola oil over a layer of egg yolk combined with lemon juice, mustard and water, submerge the immersion blender, turn it on, slowly pull it up through the ingredients and voilà: mayonnaise in an instant.

That’s even easier than Chef Manceron’s movie magic. However, there’s a little more to do if you want the result to be not just mayo, but delicious mayo. For that, you need olive oil for flavor. Unfortunately, you can’t include the olive oil in that blender jar; olive oil has a different molecular structure than canola oil does, and the vortex trick doesn’t reliably work with it. (Occasionally it does; often it “breaks” — that awful thing that happens when your beautifully thick mayo falls apart into what looks like a vinaigrette.) That’s why, after the super-easy hand-blender trick, López-Alt has you whisk in a lot of olive oil by hand. It’s not the end of the world, but it does take some muscle to whisk in a full cup.

I wanted to make the process a bit easier, and I also prefer mayo that’s richer than López-Alt’s. While I do like the 50-50 olive oil-to-flavorless-oil ratio he uses, I favor a mayonnaise with a higher ratio of egg yolk to oil. For that, I turned back to a chef from mayo’s birthplace.

Mayonnaise the French way

In late 2020, renowned Paris chef Jean-François Piège published a monumental book that ambitiously and impressively aimed to codify the canon of contemporary French cooking: Le Grand Livre de La Cuisine Française: Recettes Bourgeoises & Populaires. I got my hands on a copy last year when I was in Bordeaux and schlepped the 8.2 pound, 1,086 page tome back in my carry-on (yep, shoulda checked it — its weight nearly made me miss my tight connection at Charles De Gaulle!).

It was worth it — I’ve referred to it a ton. Including Piège’s recipe for Mayonnaise — in which he uses 8 egg yolks for a liter of oil, which is about 2 yolks per cup of oil — a ratio that tastes just right to me. He also uses a full 5 teaspoons of Dijon mustard per cup of mayo, and red wine vinegar rather than lemon juice. (The mammoth cookbook, in case you’re wondering, has yet to be translated into English.)

Taking that page from Piège, our Mayonnaise recipe offers more depth of flavor than López-Alt’s, while requiring 25 percent less hand-whisking. It’s as delicious as Piège's, and more easily achieved than López-Alt’s.

RECIPE: Our Favorite Mayonnaise (Immersion Blender Method)

Go make a batch — you won’t be sorry. Covered in the fridge, it keeps for two weeks — though with all its delectable applications, yours might not stretch that long.

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Say hello to the tangy green sauce that will change your life for the brighter — and its great-uncle, chimichurri

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Tangy Green Sauce Lede.JPG

By Leslie Brenner

Wouldn’t life be grand if you had an easy sauce you could whip together from a few raw ingredients (no cooking involved), and that little sauce could bring dramatic — even cheffy — dazzle to the simplest of plates? 

Ah, but you do now! Cutting to the chase, and getting straight to the recipe: Tangy Green Everything Sauce.

I wanted a raw sauce that was fresh and packed with herbs — like an Argentine chimichurri or a Sicilian salmoriglio — but decidedly tangier than either of those, definitely with lots of shallots, and focused on herbs that are softer than assertive oregano. Parsley, dill and mint harmonize beautifully — and if your’e in the mood to change things up, you can layer in tarragon, chervil, cilantro or basil. Or even oregano, if that’s how you’re feeling! (I sometimes do.)

Tangy Green Everything Sauce was born. “Everything” is its middle name because it goes with nearly everything. A seared pork chop, butterflied leg of lamb, supermarket rotisserie chicken, simple grilled fish  — any and all are transformed into something vivacious and delightful when they keep company with this sauce. Keep a jar of it in the fridge, and it takes the stress away from dinner. It doesn’t matter so much what exactly you throw in the pan; just grab what looks good, cook it simply with salt and pepper, and then pass around the Tangy Green Everything Sauce. 

Crispy-Skinned Striped Bass with Tangy Green Everything Sauce

Crispy-Skinned Striped Bass with Tangy Green Everything Sauce

We could just leave it at that — but then the people who complain about recipes that are weighed down by pesky stories would have prevailed. 

Instead, let’s parse chimichurri, since it is the honored great uncle of Tangy Green Everything Sauce. What defines chimichurri exactly, what are its origins, and when did it make its way to the U.S. and into our consciousness? 

We know it’s from Argentina, that it’s a raw sauce of chopped parsley, fresh oregano, garlic, vinegar and oil. In Uruguay, where it’s also enjoyed, dried chiles make an appearance as well.

I can’t remember the first time I saw chimichurri or heard of it — and I’ve been unable to turn up much about the sauce, either among the food reference books on my shelves, or on the web. 

(Hopefully there are chimichurri scholars out there somewhere who will jump in and shine a light on it in the comments section!)

Chimichurri ingreds.JPG

I couldn’t find it indexed in Maricel E. Precilla’s Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America. There’s no entry for it in the encyclopedic Oxford Companion to Food (at least in the original 1999 edition; I just ordered the 2014 revised edition; will update if it’s there.) No mention in James Peterson’s Sauces, nor in Time-Life’s The Good Cook Sauces. Samin Nosrat doesn’t doesn’t include it in her discussion of vinegar-based sauces, or anywhere else I could find, in Salt Fat Acid Heat. J. Kenji López-Alt has a version in The Food Lab (lots of garlic, no shallots, and cilantro included with the parsley and oregano) — but not a word about what it is, where it’s from or its cultural provenance.

Isn’t this strange — such a ubiquitous sauce, yet so little coverage?

New York magazine published a chimichurri recipe back in 2009 that feels authoritative, from Francis Mallman, one of Argentina’s most famous chefs. Adapted from  his cookbook Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way (which I could have sworn I owned a copy of — can’t find it). It’s extremely garlicky; the recipe uses the whole head, garlic (no shallot), albeit blanched to take off the edge. Parsley and oregano are in there as well (not cilantro), with an olive oil to red wine vinegar ratio of two to one. But no history to go with it.

Tangy Green Sauce in jar.jpg

Joyce Goldstein gave us “The mysterious origins of chimichurri” in a San Francisco Chronicle story in 2012. “One story says it is a corruption of English words, most commonly the name Jimmy Curry or Jimmy McCurry, supposedly a meat wholesaler,” she wrote. She then cited Miguel Brascó, an “Argentine gourmet” who traced it to the failed British invasions of Argentina in 1806 and 1807, when the prisoners asked for “condiments for their food.” Another story points to Basque settlers in Argentina, also in the 19th century, who used the word tximitxurri, which loosely translates as "a mixture of several things in no particular order."

Finally, Goldstein cited a San Francisco chef, Staffan Terje, who noted that chimichurri is “practically identical” to Sicilian salmoriglio. We know there was significant immigration of Italians to Argentina in the 18th century. A Wikipedia article outlines some of the foods they brought with them, but makes no mention of salmoriglio.

The earliest mention in Anglophone print I turned up was 1998, when the New York Times’ then-restaurant critic Ruth Reichl published a “Diner’s Journal” piece about a just-opened restaurant on Ninth Avenue called Chimichurri Grill. After praising the place’s Patagonian toothfish, Reichl wrote, “But what Argentina is mostly known for is beef. It is well represented on the menu here and tastes particularly good with chimichurri sauce, a mixture of parsley, garlic, oil and vinegar that is the country's national condiment.”

That must be about the time chimichurri started to gain popularity in the U.S. 

How long did it take to really take off? Hard to say. But just two years ago, in 2019, Nation’s Restaurant News announced that “The Latin American condiment is trending in the U.S.” Over the previous four years, the trade magazine reported an 83% increase in appearances on menus nationwide.

So yeah, it’s everywhere. And it’s delicious. Would you prefer chimichurri, or its fresh-faced new relative, Tangy Green Everything Sauce?

In my world, there’s room for both — and both will be appearing on my table again and again through grilling season.

Oh, you want that recipe, too? Bravo! You’re rewarded for reading to the end.

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Look out chile crisp: Here comes salsa macha, the Mexican condiment that may change your life

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By Leslie Brenner

This time last year, the Chinese chile oil condiment known as chile crisp held us in its spicy thrall. For many, that love still burns hot.  

But there’s a new chile oil in town — and as much as I love chile crisp, I have been swept off my feet by Mexico’s version: salsa macha. 

Suddenly, Mexico’s answer to chile crisp is everywhere. An oil-based suspension of dried chile bits, with optional additions such as sesame seeds, garlic, nuts and vinegar, it graced the pages of The New York Times Magazine in December, in Tejal Rao’s story “The Most Valuable Condiment of 2020: Salsa Macha.” The following month, Texas Monthly’s taco editor, Jose Ralat, offered up “Salsa Macha is Setting Texas on Fire.” Los Angeles-based Masienda founder (and CWB friend) Jorge Gaviria, who appeared in last month’s Culture-Dive Video, sells jars of it — a collab with So-Cal celebrity chef Carlos Salgado (Taco Maria) at his online store. 

A salsa macha — without the moniker and heavy on the sesame seeds — is one of the three house salsas at Pujol, Enrique Olvera’s renowned Mexico City restaurant.

Margarito Pérez, owner of Austin-based food truck Paprika ATX, told Texas Monthly, “It’s the avocado toast of salsa. And it’s only matter of time before someone puts salsa macha on avocado toast.” 

Salsa Macha Avo Toast.jpg

Ding!! (That’s the timer sounding.)

For Olivia Lopez, CWB’s resident Mexican cooking expert, salsa macha is a permanent fixture on her table at home. “I use it on everything!” she says. “It’s great with seafood — on grilled fish, with just a squeeze of lime. and I love it with beans. She also uses it as an accent on dishes she creates at Billy Can Can in Dallas, where she is chef de cuisine, such as a beautiful scallop ceviche tostada that may go on the menu soon. 

Olivia Lopez’s scallop ceviche tostada, finished with a big ol’ drizzle of salsa macha

Olivia Lopez’s scallop ceviche tostada, finished with a big ol’ drizzle of salsa macha

Salsa macha grabbed Lopez’s attention four or five years ago. “It became trendy a few years ago in Mexico,” she says. “Every person has their very own idea about how to make it,” with the key components being dried chiles and oil, with seeds and nuts optional. “Every time I’d go home, I’d start hearing these random names of salsas. It became a trend, and I said ‘Oh, ok it’s just a chile oil.’”

The best-known versions come from Veracruz and Oaxaca, but “there are different versions all over the country,” says the chef, who comes from Colima on the west coast, south of Puerta Vallarta. “Every single state has their own salsa macha, even though you don’t call it that.”

According to Lopez, chapulines — toasted grasshoppers — are sometimes used in Oaxacan versions. 

In Colima, the condiment goes by the straightforward name salsa de chile de arbol, named for the small, bright red dried chile that gives it plenty of heat, and it’s typically served with the white pozole of the region. “Growing up, we were always afraid of that chile,” says Lopez. The fear also applied to the salsa. “You just put a few drops on your spoon and you had to be super careful.” 

Lopez’s own salsa macha is not fiery hot; she uses a bit of chile de arbol, and much more ancho and guajillo chile — along with sesame seeds, peanuts, garlic, a touch of cider vinegar and a shake of dried oregano. Because it’s not too spicy, you can eat a lot of it — there’s infinite flavor, unfettered by prohibitive heat. Four of us polished off about six ounces with tacos one night last week; it is so delicious.  

A generous drizzle of salsa macha can pull a lunch cobbled together from leftovers into a fabulous treat.

A generous drizzle of salsa macha can pull a lunch cobbled together from leftovers into a fabulous treat.

“What I like in the anchos is they’re meatier to me and they have some sort of sweetness, a sweet note at the end. The guajillo’s very thin and has a bit of bitterness.” The oregano, unusual in salsa macha recipes, is a great addition. “I love dried oregano,” says Lopez. “It’s very aromatic. Grandma used to use a lot of oregano, fresh or dried, and she’d throw it a lot on her sauces. You get more the aroma than the taste.” 

Agreed — which it is why it is my current condiment of choice. 

Treat yourself to Olivia Lopez’s version, which is super easy to make, and keeps well in the fridge for a month. We wouldn’t blame you if you made a double-batch.

RECIPE: Olivia’s Salsa Macha

RECIPE: Pujol’s Sesame, Guajillo and Morita Salsa

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Gribiche, gribiche, gribiche: A different take on the sauce that jazzes up everything

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Boiled shrimp with four-minute egg gribiche

Last month I wrote about a modern take on sauce gribiche, promising to follow up right away with more about gribiche. Forgive me – I got sidetracked by a startling hummus development! 

So, back to gribiche. I don't know how long gribiche has been around, but I do know August Escoffier gave a recipe for it in his 1903 Guide Culinaire. You've gotta love the way recipes were written then:

"Crush in a bowl the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs, and work them into a smooth paste, together with a large tablespoon of French mustard, the necessary salt, a little pepper, and make up the sauce with one pint of oil. Complete with two teaspoons of parsley, chervil, and tarragon (chopped and mixed), as many capers and gherkins, evenly mixed, and the hard-boiled whites of three eggs, cut in short, Julienne strips. This sauce is chiefly used with cold fish."

A few notes: First, this is the 1969 American English translation of the French; today it would no doubt say "Dijon mustard" rather than "French mustard." Second, I love the phrase "the necessary salt." Third, by "make up the sauce with one pint of oil," I'm pretty sure he meant whisk the olive in slowly, as in a mayonnaise – though I was surprised not to find vinegar or lemon juice in the recipe. "Gherkins": no doubt Escoffier was referring to cornichons. 

Anyway, the effect would have been like a chunky mayo – and that's what sauce gribiche meant for the better part of the century. (Excuse me while I geek out on culinary history; if I'm boring you, just skip down to the modern part!) 

Fast forward to The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, which the late great Judy Rodgers published in 2002. In it Rodgers included a recipe for Four-Minute Egg Gribiche. 

"This one is inspired by the mustardy gribiche the Troisgros brothers drizzled over beef carpaccio," she wrote, "and crowned with a pile of crispy hot fried potatoes, as an alternative to the familiar raw-egg steak tartar. " She goes on to describe the grillions of things you can do with it, from serving it with grilled fish or poultry to slathering it on sandwiches to putting it in potato salad.

Her version is much more like a mayonnaise than my modern take is. But it's much zingier, herbal and zesty than mayo, with wonderful texture.  Here's my adaptation of Rodgers' recipe:

It requires more a bit more concentration and technique than my easy modern version; you need to whisk all that olive oil in slowly so the sauce emulsifies (getting that mayonnaise consistency) and doesn't "break." But for some people it'll be worth it: Thierry loved it even more than he did my new-wave version. 

Roasted romanesco with four-minute egg gribiche

Roasted romanesco with four-minute egg gribiche

And if right about now you're thinking it would be fun to live with me because I cook, think again: I must have fed him gribiche twenty times that weekend! That day for lunch we had the gribiche three ways: with boiled shrimp (excellent); with boiled asparagus (wonderful) and with roasted slabs of romaneso (also very good!). Insanely weird all together: We had gribiche coming out of our ears! But that shrimp would be really nice as a main course for a Sunday lunch, or as a starter at a dinner party (the shrimp can be served warm or chilled). Or it would be great with cracked crab. Or roasted ham. Maybe even a roast tenderloin of beef. 

I'm not providing formal recipes for those very simple things, but happy to walk you through the three I made:

Roasted romanesco (feel free to substitute cauliflower): Slice the romanesco into slabs about 1/2-inch thick, place on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, sprinkle on a little salt and pepper and roast in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until just tender. Serve with sauce gribiche – the four-minute egg version or the new wave version. 

Boiled shrimp: Devein the shrimp, but leave the shells on. Drop them in court bouillon or boiling salted water and cook just thill they're pink and firm, about three minutes or so, depending on their size. Drain and serve. To make a quick court bouillon, fill a medium sauce pan about half way full with water, add a few glugs of white wine, half a sliced onion, a peeled and sliced carrot, salt, a few black peppercorns, celery leaves, thyme and parsley, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 or 20 minutes. Don't worry if you're missing an herb or two. Serious people would tie the herbs and peppercorns in a bouquet garni, but I see no harm in the stuff floating around. To me it's easier to fish out the shrimp than look for the cheesecloth. 

Boiled asparagus: Trim the bottoms, and use a vegetable peeler to peel the asparagus to an inch or three below the tips. Simmer in a pan of salted water until the asparagus are floppy but still firm-ish, about four minutes for average-size asparagus – longer for jumbos and quicker for pencil-thin. Don't want to peel? Roast them instead: 17 minutes in a 400 degree oven, et voilà.

Best potato salad ever – thanks to new-wave gribiche

 

Oh: I almost forgot to mention. I had friends over for burgers last weekend, and made a batch of new-wave gribiche to see how it would do in a potato salad. Success! Here's an actual recipe: