Healthy cooking: Susan Jane White’s oh-so-easy harissa paste recipe adds a hefty dose of omega-3 to your day

Omega-3s enable our body to manufacture lots of good prostaglandins, helping squeaky knees and wrists. Prostaglandins are hormone-like substances involved in refereeing inflammation in the body. Inflammation is not confined to Sunday morning hangovers or large egos. Nope. It covers bronchitis, arthritis, eczema, asthma, sprains and allergies.

There are also bad prostaglandins that can ignite our body’s inflammatory response. Hemp and flax seed’s omega-3 content can assist in deactivating these pesky pro-inflammatory markers, without having to neck fish oil.

Hemp and flax seed oil should be cold-pressed, extra virgin, stored in the refrigerator and never heated. Look out for the brands Viridian or Biona in your health food store, and let this black olive harissa bewitch your limbs and your weekend.

We love it tumbled through baby potatoes, wrapped around hot chickpeas, used as a dip or on top of cooked white fish.

Obviously, you can replace the omega-3 oil for the traditional extra virgin olive oil, which is heavenly. This harissa will keep in the fridge for at least 10 days provided you hide it. Otherwise, expect it to last 60 seconds. Seriously good with scrambled eggs and toast, smooshed on top of hummus, served alongside breadsticks, folded into pasta, or however you fancy. Just avoid cooking with this beauty, as flax and hemp oil’s smoke point is low and may disfigure.

Black Olive Harissa

For 1 medium jar

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt flakes
• 5 cloves garlic
• Squeeze of lemon, to lift
• 3-4 jarred and cooked red peppers (about 350g drained weight)
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin hemp or flax seed oil (feel free to use traditional extra virgin olive oil)
• Handful of black olives, flesh finely diced

1 Start by dry-frying the cumin and the caraway on a hot frying pan. Make sure your frying pan isn’t greased. As soon as you smell the spices toasting, take the pan off.​

2 In a pestle and mortar, pound the toasted spices with your chilli flakes, the smoked paprika, some sea salt, the garlic and the lemon juice.​

3 Now blitz the roasted red peppers into a paste using a smoothie blender or coffee grinder. Add to your spice mix.​4 Stir through your chosen omega 3 oil. (Avoid adding the oil to the blender with the other ingredients, as it tends to turn pink.) Follow with the chopped black olives. Scoop into your serving dish.