Berbere...

Since Dave and I first began the adoption process perfecting our Ethiopian cooking skills has been one of our favorite things to do. A couple of weeks ago we decided to attempt to make berbere, a traditional Ethiopian spice, from scratch. The recipe we used called for a combination of dried New Mexican chilies, fresh garlic, fresh ginger root, red onion, rue seed, sacred basil, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bishop weed, and salt. We started off by de-seeding and stemming 2.5 pounds of red chilies and then creating a paste with the garlic, ginger and onion. We then had to dry the paste in the oven at a low temperature for several hours.

The next day when I was traveling for work, Dave added the remaining ingredients and ground it using our food processer. Here is the finish product.


Now we have a small stock of berbere to use for future cooking. We have also discovered it makes a delicious snack when sprinkled on the top of cottage cheese... Something I'm sure Little Bee will enjoy too when he comes home! In the meantime, Dave and I will work on perfecting our skills... Maybe injera is next.