The Levant and Anatolia · Volume 03, The Pestle, the Pantry and the Mezze Table
Muhammara
Aleppo
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
A dip of Aleppo pepper, red pepper paste, walnuts and pomegranate molasses, thickened with ground rusk. It puts Aleppo's sweet, sour and slow heat into one bowl.
As tradition built it
Makes about 500ml. 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes' soaking.
Ingredients
- 3 to 4 tbsp red pepper paste (dibs filfil)
- 2 tsp fine Aleppo pepper
- 2 to 2.5 cups water
- 200g ground rusk or kaak (Levantine bread rings)
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 6 tbsp pomegranate molasses
- 125ml olive oil
- 1 cup walnuts
- a little sugar, to adjust the balance
Method
- Soak the red pepper paste and Aleppo pepper in the water for 30 minutes.
- Add the ground rusk, cumin, pomegranate molasses and olive oil to the soaked pepper mixture and blend to a smooth, thick paste.
- Roughly chop a portion of the walnuts and fold them through by hand, keeping some texture in the dip.
- Taste and adjust with a little sugar and extra pomegranate molasses as needed, balancing sweetness against the pepper's heat.
What a modern chef changes
The emulsion built deliberately, and the walnut texture protected
Rung 4
Method
- Build the base in the sequence given, pepper paste and rusk blended smooth before the oil goes in, then stream the olive oil in slowly with the blender running, rather than adding it all at once, for the same silky-emulsion reason as hummus.
- Keep the folded-in walnuts separate from the blended base until the very last step, so the dip keeps a genuine textural contrast.
- Taste for balance before finishing, not after plating, since the interplay of Aleppo pepper's heat, the pomegranate molasses's sourness and a little added sugar is the whole point of the dish, and it is far easier to correct in the bowl than on the plate.