Food Post #204: Mediterranean style Muhammara

I am excited to present to you a brand new dish that I made yesterday- Muhammara- a delicious, red colored, peppery, lightly sweet, tart, and nutty Mediterranean style dip. I ate this on a plane ride from Seattle to Dubai a couple years ago, and I quite liked it. It's a great addition to that Mezze platter that you can serve as an appetizer at your next party.

The traditional key ingredients in Muhammara are roasted red bell pepper, aleppo pepper, walnuts, and pomegranate. Now as it often happens in my home kitchen pantry, I don't always have all the ingredients at one time for one dish, and so then I make do with whatever there is available. In this case, I didn't have any walnuts, nor aleppo pepper, so I decided to use almonds instead, and some reaper chilli flakes. My friend had given me some sumac, a tart spice (very similar to the Indian anaardana) a few months ago, and I was delighted because I could finally use some of it in this dish! :)

The only longish step in terms of time is roasting the bell pepper. Once that is done, it takes under 10 minutes to whip up this tasty as well as super healthy dip.

Muhammara 

Ingredients:  

Red Bell Pepper- 2

Almonds- 2 tbs

Garlic- 2 cloves

Pomegranate- 2-4 tbs

Chilli flakes- 1-2 tsp

*If using reaper chilli flakes which are VERY HOT, a pinch will do

Salt to taste

Sumac- a pinch

Method: 

1. Wash bell pepper, wipe dry, brush oil all over the bell pepper, place in an oven safe pan/dish.

2. Broil under high setting for 10-12 minutes each side. The idea is to char the skin of the bell pepper.

3. Set aside to cool.

4. After it has cooled off, remove skin, and the stem. The seeds will come off with the stem, which is exactly what you want.

5. Cut this roasted, peeled red bell pepper into strips, and transfer into your food processor. Add some chili flakes, and salt to taste.

6. Toast some almonds, and add a couple cloves of garlic to the toasted almonds to soften them up a bit.

7. Add the above to the bell pepper in the food processor. Also add some pomegranate seeds to the same. Blend it all into a nice dip.

8. Transfer into serving dish. Garnish with pomegranate seeds, sumac, and a drizzle of good olive oil. Serve with some warm pita, crackers, or vegetables.