Xawaash

Combine a pinch of fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, and  sage. I use a mortar and pestle but you can use the spice grinder. (dry roasting is an option but I don’t do it).    Also if you have a spice grinder that is ok you can use that. Grind it till you have a course powder not too fine or you will lose all of the aroma.  I put in mortar and pestle  the 2 green cardamoms,  a clove, the ginger slice  I  had washed and peeled  fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds  and  I grind to a course powder without roasting  first. it is everyone’s preference.  I grind the nutmeg with a fine grater  til  I get  a pinch of powder.  I have some cinnamon powder I  mixed that along with some turmeric powder and  I give it a good mix  and set it aside ready to use for my cooking.  I make my spice blends for that meal only  meaning for single use only because sometimes the longer ground spices  sits  and it hits the air  that all of the flavors  evaporate so I want to use them fresh while I can.

When I am out of ideas I blog hop  and there are people who blog hop also like the people   who are tamalpku  and many  others but this is not about Indian food in these next several posts. This is about  food from Somalia. It is on the horn of Africa with several other countries Ethiopia Eretria and Djibouti.

I have some  Somali neighbors and my husband comes home and smells their cooking he said it  makes him hungry.  I used this  to put it saquur which is a stew  that I got from mysomalifood.com.   So far the spice is yummy.  This recipe came from  spicemixes.com but I made one change in it from dried to fresh ginger because it is what I have in my house and besides to me fresh tastes better  and I did not roast these  spices I don’t do that unless I am making sambar or rasam  again back to  the subject of this post is one of the African spices.

Ingredients: grated nutmeg, 2 green cardamoms, a thin piece of fresh ginger washed and peeled,  a pinch of cinnamon powder, (if using a cinnamon stick break off a piece and grind it), a pinch of  sage, a pinch of cumin seeds, a pinch of  turmeric powder, a pinch of fenugreek seeds, a pinch of  black pepper corns, 1 clove.