Zhoug with a proper temper
The Yemeni green sauce that bites back. The cardamom is the tell.
At a Glance
Story
Zhoug is a Yemeni sauce that came to Israel with Yemenite Jews and turned into a national habit, spooned onto everything from falafel to eggs. Plenty of cuisines have a green chili and herb sauce, but the cardamom and cumin are what mark this one as Yemeni rather than just hot, a warm, almost floral note under all that fire. It is meant to be spicy, so taste before you commit to the third chili.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cilantroroughly chopped (leaves and tender stems, packed)
- 3 green chilieschopped (serrano or jalapeño, seeds out for less heat)
- 4 cloves garlic
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- salt
Method
A small jar of green fury for when a dish needs waking up. Spicy by design, so scale the chilies to your nerve.
- Pulse the cilantro, chilies and garlic in a food processor to a coarse paste, or pound them in a mortar and chop the rest by hand, this is a sauce with texture, not a smooth purée.
- Stir in the cardamom, cumin, lemon juice and a good pinch of salt, then work in the olive oil until it comes together loose and glossy. The ground cardamom is the whole personality here, do not skip it or you have just made a lesser hot sauce.
- Let it sit a few minutes for the heat and the spice to marry. A spoonful lifts grilled chicken, roast vegetables, rice, soup or a fried egg. It keeps a week in the fridge under a film of oil.
More to cook
A lasagna with a short fuse
The golden lasagna's wilder sister, all smoky sausage and charred poblano with a chipotle streak, cooled by a lime drizzle.
Golden lasagna
A carrot lasagna so light you could eat the lot and still fancy pudding.
Spatchcock chicken over leeks and greedy bread
One bird on a bed of leeks, and torn baguette underneath drinking up every drop.
The tomato pasta worth the airfare
Three kinds of tomato, a whisper of anchovy and enough lemon to keep it honest.
Bagna cauda for the anchovy-shy
The warm garlic and anchovy bath that quietly wins every party. Melting, not fishy, and gone before the coats are off.
Chunky chimichurri for steak night
Parsley, oregano, garlic and vinegar, chopped not blended. The steak's best friend.
Five-minute harissa yogurt
Smoky, cooling and quick. The yogurt does the calming, the harissa does the talking.
One-pot Pugliese sausage and potatoes
Peasant food that minds itself in the oven, as happy on a Tuesday as it is at a three-hour lunch.
Salsa cruda for peak tomatoes
Grated ripe tomato, garlic and basil. The less you do to it, the better it is.
Salsa verde, anchovy and all
Sharp, briny and green. The Italian one, not the tomatillo one.
Grated tomato and Calabrian chili
Grated tomato with a Calabrian kick and a lemon lift. Sauce or dip, your call.
Za'atar yogurt with sumac
Herby, tangy and green-flecked. The cooling spoon for anything off the grill.
Lemon pesto spaghetti, all zest and no juice
The Amalfi trick: zest steeped into the pasta water and pounded into the pesto, toasted almonds underneath, not a drop of juice anywhere.
Shrimp in a fish sauce caramel
Sugar taken to the edge of burnt, then doused with fish sauce: Vietnam's sweet-and-savoury backbone, wrapped around shrimp over jasmine rice.
Sweet corn campanelle with miso butter
Corn three ways in one pot, then the fix the original never knew it needed: white miso in the butter and a lemon squeezed over the lot.