Last night we spiced things up with barbecue grilled pork chops slathered in Robert Rothschild Farm Harissa Moroccan Sauce. This is another of my purchases with the birthday gift card my son gave me to A Southern Season (gourmet food and cooking store) in Chapel Hill, NC.
If you're not familiar with Harissa, it's kind of the catsup of Tunisia in north Africa, but it's been trending in Morocco. It's a tomato product with various spices and chilis, and it's typically quite spicy; styles vary by area and the cook or chef. Harissa sauces are used in cooking and also used as condiments.
Someone (who will remain unnamed) picked me up some pork chops to grill but got the real thin cuts. Those are hard to grill. They grill so fast that saucing them is pretty difficult. The sauce just won't set up in the time they take to grill. So, I have been using marinades and seasonings on my thin grilled pork chops.
The Robert Rothschild Farm Moroccan Sauce is not specifically a marinade, but it's thin enough that it works fine. The texture and body is similar to salsa.
I put the pork chops in with the Moroccan Sauce for about a half hour before I put the meat on the Char-Broil Urban Grill.
I put the pork chops on the hot grates (preheated about 10 minutes) and flipped them after about 5 minutes. They had nice grill marks at that point, but chunks of tomatoes don't exactly set up on pork chops. So, I topped the grilled up side with a little more of the Moroccan sauce.
With the grill lid down on lower heat (again for around 5 minutes), the pork chops finished off, and the sauce got nice and hot and spread out across the top of the pork chops.
Wow! This was a flavor explosion. Morocco is known for spicy hot food, and this sauce is no exception. It has several kinds of hot chilis in the sauce. It was really zippy but a nice flavor (sweet hot - not bitter hot).
Only the heat freaks were home for dinner, and everyone thought the Moroccan Sauce was great. I would not serve it to my younger son who does not like spicy food, and I'd not use it for a general party, unless I had some mild foods for an option. But, for those who like some fire in the flavor, this one rocks it. Quite hot but just a lovely flavor mix with the spices.
Here's the Moroccan Sauce that we used on our pork chops. I know it's easier to know what the bottle looks like rather than go in the store and try to find something you've not seen before.
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3 comments:
If you still have the harissa bottle with you, do you know the ingredients used in it? Looks like it has a lot of tomato seeds!
Yes. I still have the bottle. Those aren't tomato seeds though. They are pepper seeds. This is a hot and spicy sauce.
You don't even have to look at the ingredients. The picture alone says hot and spicy.
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