Dibs al-Flayfleh (Syrian red pepper paste)

Dibs al-flayfleh is a thick dark-red paste made by drying red peppers and crushing them, and it is one of the fixed jars of the Syrian pantry. In the method described, village peppers are washed, cleaned, dried and crushed into paste. The yield is small: by the reckoning of a woman in Hasakah who makes it at home, 10 kilos of peppers give 1 kilo of paste. Families make it themselves or buy it by the kilo in the market.

When it is made

At the end of summer, in the same weeks as makdous. The two belong to the same season because one goes inside the other. The paste is one of the basic items of mouneh, the winter pantry.

Where it goes in the kitchen

Makdous first. The paste goes into its walnut filling. A home recipe from Hasakah sets up 20 kilos of aubergines with walnuts, olive oil and half a kilo of pepper paste. In Latakia it goes into the winter dish mraymougha together with tomato paste. A market report from Damascus says people buy it not only for makdous but for many jobs in the home kitchen.

Where to buy it

In Damascus it is sold by the kilo from large tins in al-Souq al-Atiq, the old market. Sellers stress that it is made from village peppers, washed, cleaned and dried. In Hasakah and on the coast it is made at home and sold. In Tartus villages women make pepper paste from their garden surplus, alongside jams and pickles, with recipes learned from their mothers; in the Latakia countryside it is part of what women produce at home. The state canning company has also been making a factory version for some time.

Not Aleppo pepper, not muhammara

All three come from red pepper, but they are different things. Aleppo pepper is dried flakes; muhammara is a walnut dip; dibs al-flayfleh is the paste in between. Part of the confusion is the name: in Hasakah the paste itself is also called muhammara.