Recipe
How to make Chraimeh: the Middle East's answer to hot sauce
Hailing from Libya, this spicy sauce will add a fiery flavour kick to everything from grilled fish to vegetables
Anyone who's ever tasted chraimeh in a Middle Eastern restaurant will know how addictive this fiery sauce is.
The much-revered chef and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi, guru of all food Middle-Eastern, uses chraimeh sauce in a couple of his recipes.
It is Libyan in origin, and he describes it as "piquant", which, coming from the master of all things hot and spicy, means bloody hot by our standards!
Interestingly, the heat in his recipe comes from hot paprika (not the local bottled version, which is flavourless, nor the smoked Spanish variety). You could replace it with chilli powder.
It's good over fish or chicken but also great to jazz up vegetable dishes.
He says the sauce keeps well in the fridge (in a glass jar, preferably) for up to a week or can be frozen for a month.
HOW TO MAKE OTTOLENGHI'S CHRAIMEH SAUCE
Ingredients:
6 garlic cloves, crushed
10ml (2 tsp) hot paprika
15ml (1 tbsp) caraway seeds, lightly toasted and crushed in a mortar and pestle
10ml (2 tsp) ground cumin
2.5ml (half tsp) ground cinnamon
45ml ( 3 tbsp) sunflower oil
45ml (3 tbsp) tomato paste
10ml (2 tsp) caster sugar
15ml (1 tbsp) lime juice
Salt
Method:..
There’s never been a more important time to support independent media.
From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.
For just R80 you can become a premium member (digital access) and support a publication that has played an important political and social role in South Africa for over a century of Sundays. You can cancel anytime.
Already subscribed? Sign in below.
Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@timeslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.