Muhammara
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Muhammara
- 250 g roasted red peppers, from a jar is genuinely fine here, drained and patted dry rounded
- 150 g walnuts, lightly toasted and cooled rounded
- 60 g coarse breadcrumbs, for body; this is what stops it being a sauce rounded
- 40 ml pomegranate molasses, the defining ingredient, and there is no real substitute rounded
- 40 ml olive oil rounded
- 15 ml lemon juice rounded
- 8 g Aleppo pepper, mild, fruity and slightly sweet; ordinary chilli flakes are hotter rounded
- 5 g ground cumin rounded
- 6 g fine salt rounded
- 1 garlic clove rounded
Method
Method
- Toast the walnuts in a dry pan until they smell nutty, then cool them completely. Warm walnuts turn the dip oily.
- Pulse everything together, in short bursts, scraping down twice. Stop while it is still coarse. You want to see the walnuts.
- Rest two hours at room temperature. The breadcrumbs need to take up the oil and the molasses, and it tastes thin and sharp before they have.
- Serve with a well of olive oil and a few walnut halves on top.
Notes
- Pomegranate molasses is not optional. It is reduced pomegranate juice, thick and dark and startlingly sour, and it is the reason muhammara tastes like nothing else. Most Turkish and Middle Eastern shops carry it, and one bottle lasts a year.
- Aleppo pepper is the other half of the identity. It is mild, fruity and slightly raisiny rather than hot. If you substitute ordinary chilli flakes, use about half and accept a sharper dip.
- The breadcrumbs are structural. They are not padding; they are what makes this a dip you can scoop rather than a pepper sauce.
- It keeps 5 days and improves for the first two.
- It is very good on things, not only with bread. Spoon it over grilled lamb, roast cauliflower, or a piece of oily fish.
Ingredient substitutions
- Pomegranate molasses at a pinch can be approximated by reducing 150 ml of pomegranate juice with a teaspoon of lemon juice down to 40 ml. It is thinner and less complex but recognisably the right direction.
- Walnuts are traditional. Toasted hazelnuts work and are sweeter; almonds are too mild and the dip goes flat.