Homemade Harissa and Black Garlic Barbecue Sauce With Cortney Burns

Think of preserves and condiments as stored effort that can make your weeknight cooking quick—and flavorful.

Hi everyone! Have you included The Dinner Plan on your list of Substack recommendations? I’d be so grateful if you would. Then come right back for today’s recipes.

For chef Cortney Burns, cooking through the colder side of spring means slowly roasting a couple of racks of pork ribs in the oven: “I kind of skirt the seasons a little bit,” she says, “and play with what I think of as summer foods, but done in a winter way.”

She shellacks the ribs with black-garlic barbecue sauce, and serves them with brown butter cornbread (grab both links below), plus a mix of caraway kraut and fresh cabbage, tossed with buttermilk dressing and lots of chopped herbs. It’s a dinner that thrums with sunshine, even when it’s blustery outside.

I’ve loved Cortney’s food for a long time—a decade ago, I’d often sit at the counter at Bar Tartine in San Francisco to watch her work her magic. Now she lives on Cape Cod, and in addition to her own cookbook, Nourish Me Home (on Bookshop here), she’s the co-author of the Preserved series of books with Darra Goldstein and Richard Martin.

I talked to Cortney on this week’s podcast about the ways that simple preserving projects that can enhance your weeknight cooking—and how to get inspired in the kitchen when you’re just not feeling it.

For Cortney, a larder of condiments and preserved fruits and vegetables “really becomes that muse—that jumping off point that can just take something from meh,” she says, to “mind blowing.” Even if you’re just dressing up a pot of beans or a roasted chicken. Even if you’re just spooning some alongside some browned sausages or tofu.

These contents of these jars are stored effort that you can use later as your quick-dinner super power.

Cortney shares her dinner planning routine—and how she challenges herself to put off a trip to the grocery store for as long as possible. “If I happen to have, you know, a bag of onions that didn't get used and they're a little soft, you know, we're probably going to have onion soup, we're probably going to have braised onions,” she says.

Sometimes dinner ideas pop up in a moment of nostalgia. When you’re not sure what to cook, a walk down memory lane can help. What foods or flavors do you remember loving? Could you recreate them?

But other sparks are waiting in cookbooks that take you to places you’ve never actually been. Listen in for a few of Cortney’s favorite sources of inspiration, and scroll down to get the formula for homemade harissa from Preserved.

You’ve got to start your larder somewhere.

Big book giveaway!

To enter to win a set of all four Preserved books by Darra Goldstein, Cortney Burns, and Richard Martin—Fruit, Vegetables, Condiments, and Drinks—all you need to do is make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter and leave a comment below by Friday, March 14, 2025.

Winner will be alerted by DM and email—be sure to check your messages! U.S. addresses only, 18+, no purchase necessary. Giveaway not sponsored or administered by Substack or Instagram. Ends Friday, March 14, 2025.

Purchasing something through the affiliate links in this newsletter or this guest-recommended cookbook list on Bookshop helps to support the show and keep this newsletter free.

Cortney mentioned:

Black Garlic Barbecue Sauce (From Preserved: Condiments, reprinted on FoodGal)
Melissa Clark’s Brown Butter Cornbread (don’t miss The Dinner Plan episode with Melissa!)
Excalibur dehydrators
Chicken Wings in Garlic Butter (From Nourish Me Home, excerpted on Brava)
Chatham Harvesters fish share
Sauce gribiche for putting on asparagus (Serious Eats)
Gabrielle Hamilton’s Braised Fennel Hearts (NYT Cooking)
Gabrielle Hamilton’s Leeks Vinaigrette (NYT Cooking)
Judy Rogers / Zuni Roast Chicken With Bread Salad (Food + Wine)
Posset (Serious Eats)

Cortney’s all-time favorite cookbooks:

Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (Bookshop link here)
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rogers (Bookshop link here), especially the brandade and saffron chowder
The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (Bookshop link here), especially the braised celery
Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli (Bookshop link here)
Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin (Bookshop link here), especially this Niçoise-ish salmon salad and the lemon curd chocolate tart and the buttermilk pound cake.
See the full list of guest-recommended cookbooks here.

Maggie mentioned:

This week’s podcast episode was brought to you with support from Mama Lil’s Peppers. Use code DINNERPLAN15 for 15% off at mamalils.com.
Ayoh Giardiniera Mayo
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Seared scallops with cured lemon beurre blanc (full recipe in The Palomar Cookbook, but you can get their cured lemon paste recipe here.)

Photo: David Malosh

Homemade Harissa

Excerpted with permission from Preserved: Condiments by: Darra Goldstein, Cortney Burns, and Richard Martin, published by ‎Hardie Grant North America.

Thanks to its copious herbs and warm spices, this North African hot-pepper paste yields more than heat, which comes on slowly only after the savor of spice. Here, we ferment the sweet and hot peppers for a week before concentrating them into a paste to make the flavor even more complex.

Although harissa is found throughout the Mahgreb of northwestern Africa, it probably originated in Tunisia. The peppers, of course, are native to the New World. After being introduced to Spain during the Columbian exchange, they were likely brought to North Africa by the Moriscos following their expulsion from Spain in the early seventeenth century. The word harissa stems from the Arabic root harīsa, which means “to pound.” Before the advent of food processors, the spices and peppers were laboriously pounded with a mortar and pestle, which some traditional cooks still use today.

Serving suggestions:
Rub onto chicken just before roasting.
Mix with an equal amount of aioli for an unctuous dipping sauce
Stir into bean stews or broth for a fiery kick
Turn into a compound butter for steaks or roast vegetables
Mix with a little oil and stir into couscous or rice before serving

Makes 2½ cups / 590 milliliters

Chile paste
2 ½ pounds / 1.1 kg sweet red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and cut into large chunks
1 pound / 454 g hot red chiles, such as cayenne, red jalapeño, or Fresno, stemmed
3 tablespoons / 27 g kosher salt

Harissa
1½ teaspoons coriander seed
1 teaspoon caraway seed
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
½ teaspoon cumin seed
2½ tablespoons / 17 g ground cayenne pepper or hot paprika, or more to taste
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 cup / 240 ml extra-virgin olive oil
1 lightly packed cup / 40 g fresh parsley leaves
½ lightly packed cup / 8 g fresh dill
½ lightly packed cup / 14 g fresh marjoram leaves, stripped from the stems
¾ lightly packed cup / 9 g fresh mint leaves, stripped from the stems
¼ cup / 43 g shallots, coarsely chopped
14 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons / 30 g chopped preserved lemon, seeds removed
4 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2½ tablespoons / 38 ml sherry vinegar
2 teaspoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1½ teaspoons sumac powder
1 teaspoon urfa biber (or substitute Aleppo pepper or chipotle chile powder)

MAKE THE CHILE PASTE: In a food processor, combine the bell peppers, red chiles, and salt and purée. Transfer the mixture to a 1-quart / 1 L glass jar. Wipe the inside of the jar as clean as possible and press a piece of plastic wrap directly against the surface of the peppers to prevent mold growth. Cover the jar with a tight-fitting lid.

Leave the peppers to ferment on the countertop at 65° to 70°F / 18° to 21°C for 1 week, checking back every couple of days and gently pressing a spoon against the plastic wrap to release any trapped CO2 from the jar. If any white mold appears on the surface, simply scrape it off. After 1 week, the peppers should taste gently sour. If they aren’t sufficiently sour, continue to ferment the peppers, checking on them daily.

Pour the peppers into a 9 by 13-inch / 24 by 36 cm baking dish and smooth the surface (the mixture should be no more than 1 inch / 2.5 cm deep). Transfer to a dehydrator set at 110°F / 43°C, stirring every 4 to 6 hours, or cover and bake at 170°F / 77°C, stirring occasionally after the mixture has begun to thicken. The peppers are ready when they have turned into a thick, concentrated paste, 12 to 16 hours in a dehydrator or 10 to 12 hours in an oven; you should have approximately 1½ cups / 350 ml. At this point, if you aren’t ready to finish, transfer the paste to a nonreactive container and refrigerate for up to 1 week.

FINISH THE HARISSA: In a spice grinder, combine the coriander, caraway, fennel, peppercorns, and cumin. Grind to a fine powder and combine with the ground cayenne and sweet paprika.

Gently warm the oil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add the spices and cook, swirling occasionally, until very fragrant, 5 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

In a blender, purée the cooled oil with the parsley, dill, marjoram, mint, shallots, garlic, preserved lemon, and lemon juice. Return this mixture to the saucepan, set over mediumlow heat, and whisk in the chile paste, sherry vinegar, tomato paste, honey, salt, sumac, and urfa biber. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, until the mixture is very thick and most of the liquid has cooked out, about 10 to 15 minutes. Purée in the blender once more until the harissa is perfectly smooth and emulsified. Use immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 1 year.