Harissa

Caraway and chilli; the heat scours, the seed spice matches the sweat note.

Fermented chilli paste loosened with broth spreads through the grain evenly.

A starchy legume with no aroma. Harissa hands it a whole cuisine at once.

Chilli and caraway hit the same warm register the roasted sugar sets up.

Lactic fat catches the capsaicin and the caraway floats up out of it.

Poached into a red pan of it; the yolk runs into olive oil already carrying the heat.

Salted citrus lifts the paste off the tongue where sugar would flatten it.

Fried flesh is oily and sweet, which is what chilli oil was aimed at.

Fermented chilli paste gives salt, acid and heat in one spoon.

Menthol reads cold and arrives first. Two temperatures inside one bite.

Sugar lands on the caraway rather than the chilli. Glaze a whole shoulder.

Oily fish holds the paste, and caraway does what fennel usually does for it.

Chilli paste and tomato paste fry down into one thing, not two.

Tunisia already does this; the seed is the reason it does not taste Mexican.

Rose harissa is no gimmick. Florals sit above chilli heat, never inside it.

Cocoa and dried chilli share pyrazines. Caraway is the unexpected part.

Caraway carvone against ripe berry, with the chilli acting as the salt line.