We’ve been lucky enough to have had some good harissa, and this article from the Star-Telegram.com talks about the joy of finding the spicy goodness of harissa when it’s been made just right:

Harissa: the can’t-miss condiment
By AMY SCATTERGOOD
Los Angeles Times

This is an ode to harissa. It has replaced my ketchup, my salsa picante, even — gasp! — my Louisiana hot sauce. I put it on everything.

Well, not exactly everything, but the potent North African chile sauce goes into bean soups and sandwiches, spikes my aioli and tops my pizzas. I even take it on road trips, as a kind of food insurance, where it has done wonders for roadside hamburgers and omelets, even stadium hot dogs.

We owe its invention to the spice traders who brought chiles back from the New World to Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. But these days our spice traders are on the Internet, where you can find a huge variety of harissas in tubes.

Although many of these are good, it’s hard to beat what you can make at home. With terrific dried chiles readily available, there’s no reason to squeeze your harissa out of a tube.

Although you can make harissa out of almost any dried chile that suits your personal heat index, most traditional harissas use chiles that are only about as hot as anchos or pasillas. Guajillo and New Mexico chiles, according to cookbook author Paula Wolfert, are the closest to the peppers of Tunisia. Use one or both, or add a few chipotle chiles into the mix: The smokiness of the chipotles adds a terrific earthy note. Or, if you like more heat, add a generous handful of chiles de arbol or even some red-hot Thai chiles — the flavors will mellow a bit, although not that much.

Click here to read the rest of the source article from Star-Telegram.com

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