26 May 2014

Lemon Harissa Potato Crisps (Marks & Spencer) [By @Cinabar]


With the change of season in Mark’s comes a couple of new varieties of interesting sounding crisps. The one that I chose to taste test first were these Lemon Harissa flavoured ones. I have no shame in admitting that I had to google Harissa’ as I wasn’t sure what it was. It is a Tunisian Chilli paste, often made with lemon, okay so I could have guessed at some of the ingredients given the picture on the front of the pack, but I sensed these would be right up my street. I do like my crisps spicy.
When I opened up the pack the aroma was quite distinctive and familiar, and it reminded me of bags of Bombay Mix, this boded well for my taste buds. The flavour wasn’t too hot from the crisps, they had a decent tingle of chilli, but you could still pick up on the depth of flavour without having to worry about the heat. I’d say well balanced rather than scorching.
There was clearly a lot of paprika in them, which offered the warmth and some sweet and sour edge too. I guess the sweetness was from tomato, and the sour was from the lemon as promised on the front. Other spices that shone through and gave it the Bombay Mix edge were cumin and cloves, but this made it me associate it more with India more than Africa, but perhaps that is more down to my lack of knowledge on Harissa paste.
All in all these crisps bring a nice bit of warmth out for summer, and are posh enough to stand out at any picnic, but still maintain a good moreish flavour. Spectre will be reviewing the other new flavour of summer crisps from M&S on Saturday as it contains my nemesis, lemongrass - eek!
By Cinabar

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