Moroccan Muhammara

This is a delicious crowd pleasing recipe courtesy of my friend and neighbour Geoff.  He brought it over twice, and twice it was gobbled up in no time.

It sounds exotic and it tastes exotic but basically it translates to: red pepper and walnut spread.  This good-for-you recipe is also easy to make. Which in my estimation is always a plus.

What you need:

3 Roasted Red Peppers (from a jar or if you dare to, roast them yourself)

1 cup of walnuts (using chopped in bulk is fine)

2 slices of good quality whole wheat bread

1/2 tsp cumin

2 big cloves of garlic

2 Tbs Pomegranate molasses. (available from Persian Food stores or Middle Eastern markets).

Juice of 1 lemon (or more, to taste)

Salt + Pepper to taste

Directions:

Geoff cooks by trial and error so he recommends breaking the process down into parts to get the texture and taste you’re looking for.

Preheat the oven to 350, and toast the walnuts on a cookie sheet for about 10 mins or until they become fragrant.

Start by whizzing the peppers, garlic, cumin, pomegranate molasses, and lemon juice in a food processor, then pour  (it will be pretty liquidy) into a separate bowl.

Then process the toasted walnuts until they’re almost like coarse breadcrumbs.

Take them out of the blender and reduce the bread to coarse breadcrumbs.

Gradually mix the whizzed pepper and crumbed bread into the walnuts checking the texture as you go.  You may want more or less breadcrumbs.  Keep blending until you have something like a smooth pâté.  If you try to do everything together, you’ll end up with that smooth pâté, or something more like a dip than a spread.  The processing can end up getting out of control very quickly….

Again, you can process part of the walnuts and part of the bread till they’re fine, then do the rest more coarsely if you like.  It’s an experiment every time!!!

At the end you go by taste and fold in more molasses and/or lemon juice if needed until you get it right – to your liking.

Serve with pita bread.

Trust me; you’ll like it!