Ask Hilary

Stewing over a recipe? Baffled by an ingredient? Short on meal ideas? Email food@sundaytimes.co.za

QI enjoyed a very spicy chraimeh sauce spooned over grilled fish in a Middle-Eastern restaurant recently. Very hot, I needed lots of water and bread to beat the heat, but it’s an addictive taste. Do you have a recipe/and or the origins? Margie, Sandton

● The much-revered chef and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi, guru of all food Middle-Eastern, uses the sauce in a couple of his recipes. It is Libyan in origin, and he describes it as “piquant”, which, coming from the master of all things hot and spicy, means bloody hot by our standards! Interestingly, the heat in his recipe comes from hot paprika (not the local bottled version, which is flavourless, nor the smoked Spanish variety). You could replace it with chilli powder. It’s good over fish or chicken but also great to jazz up vegetable dishes. He says the sauce keeps well in the fridge (in a glass jar, preferably) for up to a week or can be frozen for a month. PS For Ottolenghi fans, his brand new cookbook, Ottolenghi Simple, is due out in September.