Cook and Drink

A few weeks ago Gido and Lien, owners of the now closed vegetarian restaurant Betty’s in Amsterdam, mailed us a recipe for Zhoug (also known as Zhug, Skhug or Schug), a hot sauce from Yemen. It combines cilantro, parsley, red or green peppers and various spices. Lien and Gido use a combination of spices known as Serinissima, produced by the French company Roellinger. Not something we have in our cupboard, so we used the ingredients as mentioned by Roellinger.

Zhug is spicy, bold, bright and intense. We enjoyed Zhug with crusted bread. We could imagine it’s also very tasty with falafel, grilled fish, oven roasted vegetables or fresh tomatoes.

What You Need

• 30 grams of fresh Cilantro
• 15 grams of fresh Parsley (leaves only)
• Excellent Olive Oil
• 1 small clove of Garlic
• ½ Jalapeño
• 2 teaspoons in total of
  • Clove
  • Ginger Powder
  • Melegueta Pepper (Grains of Paradise)
  • Saffron
  • Cumin
• Black Pepper to taste
• ½ teaspoon of Salt
• Lemon Juice to taste

What You Do

1. Grate the cloves, ground the Melegueate pepper and the cumin
2. Combine grated clove, grounded pepper, ginger powder, saffron and grounded cumin
3. Coarsely chop the garlic and the jalapeño. For a less spicy zhug remove seeds and membrane
4. Add all ingredients, except the lemon juice and the olive oil to a kitchen aid or food processor
5. Add olive oil
6. Pulse to make a pesto-like substance
7. Add some lemon juice to taste
8. Pulse until it has a consistency you like
9. Transfer to a glass jar, add some olive oil on top
10. We prefer to enjoy zhug the next day