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benazir's blog

Berebre

I so very much love Ethiopian food it is just as spicy and very delicious to me. I love spicy food way too much. I got introduced to Ethiopian food after I have tried it a couple of times at an Ethiopian restaurant. I went with one of my best friends irl who also loves spicy foods. She enjoys this a lot and she turned me on to it and it is after a while that I got hooked on it and started to make it.

So I went on line and started to collect these recipes on how to make this yummy food. I wanted to start making this in my own home at a fraction of a cost it takes to going to a restaurant. They can be very pricey indeed and that is why I started to make it myself.

Knowing myself is that I do not have patience and I wanted so desperately on how to do this myself. There are a ton of sites out there on how to make Ethiopian food and some videos from How To Cook Great Food site has cooking videos. They have gotten away from making text recipes very much so I want to write an easy recipe for this yummy cuisine.

So without further ado, I am going to give you my spin on berebere which is very much like the curry powder of many Ethiopian dishes.

I mixed in a bowl some grated nutmeg, 1 pinch each of red chili powder, paprika, cinnamon powder or 1 broken piece of cinnamon stick ground in mortar and pestle and turmeric powder and gave it a mix.

In mortar and pestle I added 2 cloves, 1 small cardamom, 6 allspice berries, 1 pinch each of black peppercorns, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and coriander seeds. I ground all of these in to a powder with my mortar and pestle. However I do not roast my spices and feel it is not necessary. However some do though and I feel oh well it is going to be cooked in to the food and overcooking the spices causes it to lose valuable oils and there is no taste afterwords so why bother. Even for those that roast their spices my beg to differ with me my disagree with me but hey, I am entitled to my own opinion.

For those that want to roast go right ahead and this is totally optional.

I empty my contents in to the bowl and mix. Sorry I had gotten ahead of myself and taken the picture before I finished it. I cut 1 small slice of ginger washed and peeled it and placed it in my mortar and pestle followed by a pinch of minced onion and 1 clove of garlic sliced and I ground those in to a paste and put it in the container you see in this picture of the unfinished berebre and blended it then set it aside to use for later. I want to also add that if you grind 2 cloves of garlic. 3 slices of onion or 1 shallot and 1 small piece of ginger then make a paste in a blender with 1/4 cup of water for ease of blending is a lot easier to do then add this to the unfinished berebre. This works a lot too. Just mix and add it to the dish you are cooking and do not worry about it because it serves the same purpose.

Please enjoy this berebre recipe . If you want to use a spice grinder that is fine too but it is not recommended for the onion garlic and ginger if you are using fresh.

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