“Labneh, all thick, tangy and lightly salted, could be served to me out of the container as is and I would say, ‘Wow, that’s a perfect dip.’ But of course, there’s always a chance for more. Without doing too much, harissa paste – spicy and spiced, complex and nuanced – is the perfect out-of-the-jar ingredient to give you something, well… more. It would be a shame to upstage it by adding needless ingredients, so I won’t, and you shouldn’t. While more ambitious recipes exist, sometimes the best things in life require a lot less from you. Different brands of harissa will have different ingredient lists and therefore different levels of spiciness, so think of the amount called for here as a suggestion, using your best judgement to add more or less. Some brands make a more mild harissa, the bulk of which is made from something like tomato puree (paste) or bell peppers, and you can use a lot more of those types in this recipe. Other brands stick to a more minimal ingredient list, containing only chilli peppers, garlic and various spices; these tend to come in a tube and are a lot spicier and more potent, so you may want to use less. Either way, both types benefit from the frying in oil that happens here. Not unlike how you’d typically cook tomato puree, this process takes the raw edge off, caramelises the sugars and deepens its flavour – a good tip anytime you’re using harissa.” – Alison Roman

This is an edited extract from Something from Nothing by Alison Roman, published by Quadrille.