Berbere Spice Mix

One of the key aspects of my ongoing chile growing adventure is to grow chiles from around the world that are integral to certain cuisines. One of my favourites so far has been the Ethiopian berbere coffee chile, which is a coffee-colour version of the standard berbere chile.  I only got a small handful from my first bush but I dried and ground them and the aroma was out of this world.

I wanted to use them to make a traditional berbere spice mixture to be used in traditional Ethiopian dishes like doro wat (spiced chicken). But finding a recipe was not that easy as there are so many with such a huge variety of ingredients. So after much searching and discussions, including with the lovely proprietors of Killo Meat Shop in Toronto where I got a number of the other traditional Ethiopian ingredients, this is my version.

Many of those traditional ingredients (*) have a variety of names, which I’ve tried to include so you can find them. If you’re lucky enough to have a large Ethiopian/Somali/Eritrian population, you should be able to find them quite easily. Many are also available in Indian/Pakistani groceries.

Makes about 1 cup

Fresh Ethiopian berbere coffee chiles from my garden

 Ingredients:

 30g whole Ethiopian berbere chiles (you want to have about 25 g of powder)

3g garlic powder

7g ground ginger

1 tbsp Bessobela (Sacred basil)*

3 g Korarima (Ethiopian cardamom)*

7 g fenugreek, whole

½ tsp Tena Adam/Rue (herb of grace)*

1 g black cumin seeds (tikur azmud or Ethiopian nigella)*

4 g Ethiopian black pepper (kundo berbere)

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp ajiwain

7 whole cloves

2 allspice berries

7 g onion powder

From top going clockwise: Fenugreek, cloves, ajiwain, Tena Adam, garlic powder, allspice berries, ground Kundo Berbere, Tikur Azmud, Bessobela (sacred basil), onion powder, Korerima,, and ground ginger in the middle.

Method:

If you have whole chiles: wipe clean, remove stem and seeds. Dry roast for a few minutes in an ungreased frying pan – no more than a minute on each side.  Set aside to cool.

If you only have ground chiles, then add a ½ tsp or so of smoked paprika to get that slightly smokey flavour that comes from the dry roasting.

Korerima (Ethiopian black cardamom)

Take all the whole spices (peppercorns, allspice, fennel, korerima, tikur azmud, ajiwain, cloves) and gently toast them in the dry frying pan. Just a few minutes until they turn a little brown and fragrant. Too dark and they’ll be bitter. Also set aside to cool.

Ground berbere chiles

Once cooled, grind the chiles into a powder in a spice or coffee grinder. Set aside.

Add all the cooled whole spices to the grinder and grind for a few minutes until fine.

Add the rest of the spices and herbs (sacred basil, Tena Adam, salt, onion, garlic, ginger) plus salt and waz for a few seconds until it’s all mixed.

If there’s space in the grinder, add the ground chile powder to the mix and again just waz for a few seconds to mix. If there’s not space, put the ground spices and chile powder in a bowl and give it a good stir.

Give it a good whiff so you can smell all that delicious aroma.

Store in an airtight glass container. It’ll keep super fresh for about 6 months but in reality will last a long time but lose some of its strength.

 

© Gail J. Cohen 2022

 

 

Black lime chile spice mix

A mainstay of Persian cooking, black limes (aka noomi basra; limoo amani; and loomi)  are fresh limes blanched in salt water (which means they are briefly scalded in boiling water before being plunged into freezing water) and left to dry until they're rock hard, resulting in golf size, brown to black coloured balls with a brittle texture that easily yields itself to a grinder.  You can find them in most Middle Eastern grocery stores.

They are traditionally used whole to flavour stews and spices. I created this rub because I wanted to take advantage of the funky citrus flavour but to use on roasted and bbq meats.

I used dried sugar rush peach chiles because they are my favourite and I have a lot of them but you can use a medium chile powder or any other dried chiles instead depending on the heat you prefer. If using super hot chiles, I’d just use one.

Yield: about ¾ cup

Ingredients

4 dried black limes (aka limoo aman or noomi basra)

3 dried sugar rush peach chiles (or 1-2 tsp chile powder)

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried mint

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground turmeric

Method:

If using whole dried chiles, remove the stems of the chiles and grind to a fine powder in a spice or coffee grinder. Put into a small non-reactive bowl.

 

Crack open the black limes – I used a small kitchen mallet – and remove any seeds. Grind the limes to a fine powder. Add to the chile powder in bowl.

Add all the other ingredients to the bowl. I tend to grind spices as needed so cinnamon was also ground and parsley and mint crushed from whole before adding to the bowl.

Mix it all together and store in an airtight glass container. Store in a cool dry place and it should retain its potency for a few months.

Great as a rub on roasts or grilled meats – just add a few tablespoons to some olive oil and rub on the meat.

Also a great addition to soups, stews, and even popcorn.

 

 ©️ Gail J. Cohen 2022

Boerie burgers: when sausage just ain't right

Hands down, if I have the choice for sausage, it’ll always be South African boerwors. Problem is that it’s often hard to find – although if you’re in the Toronto area, Oakville-based Florence Meats does the best one around, no question – and sausages are not the easiest to make, so we don’t eat it all that often.

On a recent trip to South Africa, I tried to eat boerwors at every opportunity but I’m not gonna lie, I was often let down. But . . . then there was McDonald’s. Laugh all you want but each country always has some local speciality and it just so happened that when we were there it was boerie burgers. So of course we had to have them and they turned out to surprisingly be the best boerwors of that particular trip.

As it’s now summer in the northern hemisphere, grilling on the bbq is where it’s at, and regular old hamburgers can sometimes get a bit boring. So I thought why not give it a try with the boerie burger. The thing is that the spice mixture is what it’s all about so if you don’t get it right, they aren’t going to be good. Here’s my first kick at the can. It's pretty good but can always stand a bit of refining.

Yield; 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 cup of breadcrumbs
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp water
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 ground cloves
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon black pepper

I start off mostly with whole spices and just put them all in a mortar and pestle and grind them so the flavours are the freshest. A coffee grinder also works well and gets the grind very fine.

Mix the breadcrumbs, water, and vinegar together in a bowl. Add the spices and meat and gently combine. Form into patties (whatever size makes you happy. I prefer to have slightly larger, flatter patties because they often shrink on the grill).

Heat your grill to sizzling, then turn down to medium and grill for 4 minutes or so a side for med-large patties. Serve as you would any burger (sauteed onion are grand with it - but no cheese please). However, if you really want to get that South African feeling, whip up some monkey gland sauce (no monkey involved) to top them off.

© Gail J. Cohen 2016