10 Ways to Use Belazu Rose Harissa

By Emily Patrikakos, Brand Executive at The Gourmet Pantry.

Belazu Rose Harissa is a North African chilli paste made with warm spices and dried rose petals, so the heat arrives a beat late rather than up front. One teaspoon per person seasons almost anything savoury. Ten uses for one jar follow, each with a dose.

What is in the jar

Red chilli, garlic, salt and oil make the base. Behind that sits a spice blend built on cumin, coriander seed and caraway, and then the ingredient the jar is named for: dried rose petals. The petals are not there for perfume. They round the chilli off, so what you taste first is sweet cooked chilli and toasted spice, with the burn turning up a second later and building slowly. That slow heart is why Belazu Rose Harissa Paste suits people who say they do not like chilli, and why a tablespoon of it in a family dinner alarms nobody.

It is thick, salty and concentrated, much closer to a curry paste than to a hot sauce, and it has been a kitchen cupboard staple in Britain for more than twenty years. Belazu has form across this whole style of cooking: the preserved lemons that pair with the paste won three Great Taste stars from the Guild of Fine Foods in 2012, an accolade given to fewer than two entries in every hundred.

Two practical notes before you plan a week around it. A 130g jar holds about six tablespoons, so it will carry five or six of the dinners below. And once it is open it lives in the fridge: use a dry spoon every time, smooth a film of olive oil over the surface between uses, and stir the oil back through if it separates on top.

One more thing worth saying out loud. A jar of rose harissa tends to arrive as a gift in December and then do its best work in July, in the middle of stew and roast vegetable season. Treat it as a working pantry item rather than a festive one and it earns its shelf space inside a fortnight.

Why rose, and not plain harissa

Plain harissa is chilli, garlic and spice, and its job is heat with a savoury edge. The rose version is a different tool. The petals bring a faint sweetness and a soft floral top note that blunts the front of the chilli without removing the heat, so you can use more of it before anyone at the table complains. That matters when you are cooking for a range of tolerances, or for children.

It also means rose harissa sits happily with sweet ingredients that plain harissa fights: honey, roast carrot and pumpkin, dried apricots, tomatoes cooked down until they are jammy. If you have only ever used a supermarket harissa and found it blunt and one-note, that gap is the reason.

Belazu or Ottolenghi rose harissa

Two rose harissas sit on our shelves and the question comes up most weeks. They are not the same jar and they are not interchangeable.

Belazu is the deeper and saltier of the two, and it holds up to an hour in the oven without turning bitter. The Ottolenghi jar is looser, brighter and tangier, because the preserved lemon and pomegranate do the job of a squeeze of citrus. The short version: if the paste is going to be cooked, reach for Belazu; if it is going onto finished food, reach for Ottolenghi. For green harissa, smoked styles and the ready-loosened sauces, our guide on how to cook with harissa paste sets the whole shelf out side by side.

Five ways that start in a hot pan

Doses below are for four people unless stated, and none of these takes more than ten minutes of actual work.

1. Harissa butter, pushed under the skin of a chicken

Mash 1 tablespoon of harissa into 100g of soft butter with a pinch of salt. Work your fingers under the skin over the breast of a 1.6kg chicken, push half the butter in there, rub the rest over the outside and roast at 200°C for about 75 minutes. The butter carries the paste into the meat instead of letting it scorch on the surface, which is what goes wrong when you rub harissa straight onto skin. The same butter is good melting over corn, a barbecued steak or a tray of potatoes.

2. Carrots, honey, harissa, 200°C

Toss 800g of carrots cut into fingers with 1 tablespoon of harissa, 1 tablespoon of honey and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, then roast for 30 to 35 minutes until the edges catch. Spoon over yoghurt and a thin drizzle of pomegranate molasses. Pumpkin, sweet potato and beetroot behave the same way. Sweet root vegetables are what this paste was built for.

3. Shakshuka worth getting up for

Soften an onion in olive oil, add 1 tablespoon of harissa and stir for 30 seconds until it darkens and the kitchen smells of cumin, then add a 400g tin of tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes. Make four wells, crack in the eggs, lid on for 8 minutes. A quarter of a preserved lemon, rinsed and finely chopped over the top at the end, is what takes it from good to worth repeating.

4. A weeknight tomato pasta

Two tablespoons bloomed in oil with garlic, then a 400g tin of tomatoes and 15 minutes on the stove while the pasta cooks. Loosen the sauce with a ladle of pasta water so it clings, and finish with feta or ricotta. Rigatoni or a short twisted shape holds it better than spaghetti. This is the dish that converts people who bought the jar for one recipe and then forgot about it.

5. Straight into the mince

One tablespoon per 500g of beef, lamb or sausage meat, worked through with breadcrumbs and an egg. Meatballs, koftas, burger patties, or squeezed out of sausage skins and rolled. Fat carries spice further than any marinade will. Our pomegranate and lemon harissa sticky sausages are built on the Ottolenghi jar and the method works with this one, though Belazu is less sweet, so add an extra teaspoon of honey to the glaze.

Three that need no cooking at all

6. The ten-second yoghurt sauce

One tablespoon stirred into 250g of plain yoghurt with lemon juice and a good pinch of salt. That single bowl is a dip for flatbread, a marinade for lamb cutlets and a sauce for roast pumpkin. Leave koftas or chicken thighs sitting in it for an hour before they hit the grill and the yoghurt tenderises while the harissa seasons.

7. Harissa mayonnaise

Two teaspoons per half cup of mayonnaise, plus a squeeze of lemon. The jar suggests it and the jar is right: this is the fastest way to find out whether you like the paste. Prawn rolls, hot chips, a steak sandwich, a boiled egg on toast. It keeps a week in the fridge, which no fresh chilli sauce does.

8. The dressing that rescues leftovers

Whisk 1 teaspoon of harissa with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or pomegranate molasses. Pour it over couscous, freekeh, cold roast vegetables, a tin of lentils or yesterday's roast chicken pulled off the bone. Add chopped preserved lemon and parsley and a tray of tired leftovers becomes a lunch you would happily serve to someone else.

Two for the nights you have not shopped

9. A tin of chickpeas, ten minutes

Bloom 1 tablespoon in oil with sliced garlic, tip in a drained 400g tin of chickpeas and a splash of water, then crush about a third of them against the side of the pan and simmer for 10 minutes. Off the heat, stir through lemon juice and a spoonful of tahini. White beans and lentils work the same way. This is the cheapest good dinner on the list.

10. Prawns and firm fish, ten minutes ahead

Two teaspoons of harissa loosened with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the zest of a lemon, rubbed through 500g of green prawns or thick fish fillets. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough and longer is worse, because the salt in the paste starts to firm the flesh. Very hot pan or barbecue, two minutes a side, lemon over the top.

What to open alongside it

• Belazu Preserved Lemons. Small, fine-skinned Beldi lemons, hand sorted and hand packed so the fruit does not bruise. A chopped quarter improves at least half the list above.
• Smoked Chilli Harissa Paste. Literally a variation on the rose harissa, with chipotle, balsamic vinegar, cayenne and cumin behind it. This is the barbecue jar.
• Belazu Tagine Paste. Smoked paprika and pickled lemons for one-pot cooking, as in our beef tagine.
• Pomegranate Molasses. Turkish Hicaz pomegranates blended with wild Katirbasi fruit and cooked down in small batches. Tang, for uses 2 and 8.
• Belazu Culinary Spice Paste Gift Set. Rose harissa, smoked chilli harissa, tagine paste and the vegan Ve-Du-Ya in one box, and the rose harissa in the set is the larger 170g jar. The easiest present here for someone who cooks, and if you would rather send something already wrapped, start with our Christmas hampers.

The three pastes all sit under $15, which is part of why they end up as a set.

Rose harissa questions we get asked

What is rose harissa?

Rose harissa is a North African chilli paste with dried rose petals blended into the spice mix. The base is red chilli, garlic, salt and oil, with cumin, coriander seed and caraway behind it. The petals soften the heat and add a faint floral note, so the paste tastes rounded and deep rather than sharp. It is a cooking paste, not a table hot sauce.

Is Belazu rose harissa hot?

It is moderately hot and the heat is slow. Sweet chilli and toasted spice come first, then a warmth that builds over a few seconds and keeps building while a dish sits. A teaspoon per person suits most people, including children who are happy with a mild curry. Yoghurt, a spoonful of honey or something starchy pulls it back if you overshoot.

What can I cook with rose harissa?

Lamb in any form, roast chicken and chicken thighs, eggs, sweet roast vegetables such as carrot and pumpkin, chickpeas and white beans, couscous and grains, tomato pasta, prawns and firm fish. It also works cold, stirred into yoghurt or mayonnaise. It fights with cream sauces and delicate white fish, where the spice simply covers everything else.

Where can I buy Belazu rose harissa in Australia?

The Gourmet Pantry ships the 130g jar Australia-wide for $14.95, and shipping is free on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our packing room in Corio, just outside Geelong. The preserved lemons, tagine paste and pomegranate molasses that pair with it travel in the same box.

One jar, ten dinners

Rose harissa holds its place in a pantry because it does the work of a marinade, a spice mix and a sauce at once, on the nights when you cannot face building flavour from scratch. Start with one jar of Belazu Rose Harissa Paste, keep it in the fridge door under a film of oil, and work down the list. It sits with the rest of our gourmet condiments, alongside the preserved lemons, tagine pastes and molasses that go with it.