MUHAMMARA-INSPIRED RED PEPPER AND WALNUT DIP - P. 24
Ms. Stone says she has adapted this recipe for her palate and simplified it. The differences from a traditional muhammara are the lack of pomegranate molasses, no bread in the dip, and one weird thing that I wonder is a mistake: charring the peppers but not removing the skins. So she has you drizzle red bell peppers with olive oil and salt, and roast at 400 until soft and blackened (about 30 minutes). My peppers were soft but only partially blackened after that time, but by then I had noticed that she doesn’t have you skin them, so stopped the cooking. The peppers are seeded and cut into chunks, and put into a food processor with roasted walnuts, garlic, lemon juice, and cumin. This is pureed and seasoned to taste with salt and black pepper. Aleppo pepper flakes are added to finish.
I liked this, but missed the pomegranate. The amount of lemon juice used was substantial enough that there was plenty of acid, but I missed the sweetness and complexity that pomegranate adds. In the future, a combo of pomegranate plus some lemon would be good. The lack of bread/bread crumbs was welcome. The peppers having skins intact did not make the dip bitter, as I feared it might, but it did make it less vibrantly colored. I would revert to my usual method of roasting and skinning peppers for the future (blowtorch, if you must know). The picture in the book is much brighter colored that my rendition, so it makes me think the lack of direction to peel the peppers is a mistake in the recipe.
