Cooks' Books by Lisa Messinger

"Mediterranean Hot and Spicy" by Aglaia Kremezi (Broadway, $19.95)

A hot time in the Mediterranean usually requires travel. Award-winning cookbook author Aglaia Kremezi, however, memorably turns up the heat in your own kitchen. Over 100 specialties from southern Italy, Greece, Spain, the Middle East and North Africa get more than a few sprinkles from the spice shaker.

If you like the temperature turned up on your taste buds, you will probably immediately wish, as I did, that the book was part of a series of the fieriest foods from all the world's countries. The Mediterranean, though, is a dazzling locale to start.

Kremezi — who won the prestigious Julia Child Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals for best first cookbook for her "The Foods of Greece" — was born in Athens and lives on Kea, a Greek island in the Cyclades, where she runs the respected cooking school Kea Artisanal. As a longtime journalist, it's a treat for readers that she has turned her eye and palate to arguably the most flavorful foods in the world. Mediterranean foods in general, due to the blend of fresh, high-quality ingredients and wise cooking techniques, already virtually pop from plates; her sizzling feasts only up the ante.

Kremezi makes it clear why wars in this part of the world were waged over spices and why many dishes rightly "have been preserved exactly as described in ancient texts." Her do-ahead spice blends, sauces and condiments get things off to a rollicking start. Her Moroccan ras el hanout is derived from an original Moroccan blend that contained 23 spices, including aromatics and aphrodisiacs. Dukkah is a zesty Egyptian nut and spice blend.

Her take on sauces and condiments could perk up many a routine weekday dinner, such as Catalan roasted tomato sauce with peppers and nuts, North African pepper sauce as well as lemon, honey and hot pepper jelly.

Incorporating bold bases into broader dishes only increases the wow factor. Eggs are poached in a raging tomato and chile sauce. A whole grilled fish is set aflame with a chile, garlic and mint sauce. Garlic is added to a cold almond soup. Even sweets sizzle, like a dessert couscous with orange preserves, sultanas and pistachios, or a feta and ricotta cheesecake infused with tangerine zest and topped with blood orange marmalade.

Dazzling color photography helps to set the scene. Kremezi makes the stakes easy by using regional ingredients, but always advising of easier-to-find substitutions as well.

It's amazing, though, that the zing made it to the page at all. Kremezi says her grandmother, like many others of her class and time, considered bold spices to be the mark of peasants and forbid them in the house — as did her father who thought them politically incorrect and associated with years of Ottoman domination.

Lucky for us, Kremezi admits that, "Spicy foods were part of my teenage rebellion."

EGGS POACHED IN TOMATO AND CHILE SAUCE

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

2 green bell peppers, cut into strips

2 poblano chiles or red bell peppers, cut into strips (see Note 1)

4 jalapeno chiles, seeded and cut into strips

2 cups grated ripe fresh tomatoes (see Note 2), or good-quality canned chopped tomatoes with their juice

2 to 4 teaspoons Aleppo or Maras pepper, or a pinch of hot red pepper flakes, to taste

Sea salt, to taste (optional)

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste (optional)

6 eggs

Yields 6 servings.

Warm the olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat.

Add the onion, peppers and chiles. Saute until soft, about 6 minutes, stirring with a wooden spatula. Add the tomatoes and cook until the mixture just starts to thicken, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the Aleppo pepper and some salt, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Break one egg at a time into a cup or small bowl and slide it into the skillet, while the tomato and pepper mixture is simmering. Cook for another 8 minutes, spooning sauce over the egg whites, if you like, until they are set. Sprinkle with Aleppo pepper and/or freshly ground black pepper and serve.

Note 1: When handling hot peppers, experts recommend wearing rubber gloves and not touching your eyes or skin during or afterward.

Note 2: Instead of blanching, peeling and chopping tomatoes, as classic French cooking suggests, Mediterranean cooks grate the tomatoes with a box grater to get the tomato pulp. The seeds are not discarded because they are particularly flavorful. Halve each tomato vertically, cut off and discard the stem. Then carefully grate on a large-holed grater, cut side facing the holes. Discard the skin, which will remain in your hand.

HARISSA WITH PEPERONCINI AND ALEPPO PEPPER

5 ounces whole dried peperoncini or a combination of peperoncini and Anaheim chiles (see Note)

1/4 cup caraway seeds, coarsely ground in a mortar or food mill

5 ounces Aleppo pepper

15 garlic cloves, peeled

2 teaspoons sea salt, or more to taste

Extra-virgin olive oil, to top the jars

Yields about 2 cups.

Remove the stems and some loose seeds before soaking the peperoncini in boiling water for about 30 minutes, then drain.

Process the caraway, drained chiles, Aleppo pepper and garlic in a blender or food processor, stopping and scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula, until you have a coarse paste. Add salt and process for a few seconds.

Spoon into 2 half pint glass jars. Top with olive oil and seal the jars. Make sure you add oil every time you spoon harissa out of the jar. Well covered in oil, harissa will keep for months in the refrigerator.

Note: When handling hot peppers, experts recommend wearing rubber gloves and not touching your eyes or skin during or afterward.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.