Dukkah with everything

Many years before North African food became fashionable, I came across a recipe in the Telegraph for something I’d never heard of -dukkah For those who don’t know, it’s a mix, originally Egyptian, of ground, roasted nuts and spices. And it is so good that it’s tempting to use it far too much – dukkah with everything. It’s good sprinkled on vegetables, on mixed salads and particularly in grated carrot salad. It’s good to add some flavour to dishes made with pulses, over haloumi or feta cheese, and I even use it, just a little, for tagliatelle with crab and spring onions. It makes a very sober diet of plain fish and plain vegetable , like mine at the moment, – a lot more appealing, and it’s good for improving slightly dull vegetarian dishes for vegetarian guests. You can make it with any combination of nuts and spices, and it keeps very well in a jar. You need

3 cups nuts ( any combination of almonds, pistachios, pine nuts, hazel nuts or similar)
3 TBSP cumin seeds
3 TBSP fennel seeds
3 TBSP coriander seeds
3/4 cup sesame seeds
3 TBSP red pepper flakes, or less to taste
3/4 tsp smoked paprika, or more to taste
crushed sea or rock salt and peppercorns to taste

Pan roast the spices in a heavy preferably non stick pan for a couple of minutes until very lightly coloured. Cool Toast all the nuts in the same way. Cool Whiz the nuts carefully in a food processor, until roughly ground but not finely – avoid overdoing this. Finely grind all the spices in a clean coffer grinder ( or in a pestle and mortar) Remove, and then less finely grind the pepper flakes. Mix all together, and taste.