December 14, 2007

My very first Skhug - Absolutely Green and Hot הסחוג הראשון שלי

My very first Skhug

Please , don't touch your eyes after making this sauce ! ..
As I wrote before, I love hot sauces, piquant and spicy , No not too much, but Garlic and onions are always welcome, in any food.sometimes hot peppers too..

2 weeks ago, I took a Taxi to my work place, it was a short drive; After few minutes the chauffeur asked me if I know how to prepare Skhug ..?!, "No I said" ." Do you want me to learn you how to make it at home ?" ..." Yes ! please, I'm just taking a piece of paper to write the recipe ..!"
Most Jew of Yemen know how to prepare Skhug, it's the No. 1 and the most popular hot sauce here in Israel, it's eaten in most Israeli homes everyday, with evey food, with Hummus,with cheese, as a spread .
You can find very small jars of red or green skhug in every store here, in the refrigerator only,But it's not as natural as the home-made sauce .
Most Skhug are made of: green or red hot peppers, Coriander (cilantro), garlic, cumin,salt and olive oil.
"Please" , I said :"Let me know what's your name ?".. . "Why?" he asked me?... "I want to write your name besides your recipe.."
Zion's told me his 2 secrets:
1. Not grounding all Skhug ingredients together.(explanation immediately)
2. As more Skhug you will eat you'll live longer ..(let's try it..)
As he told me :"If you have a blender it's very easy to make this sauce"
Here is Zion's Skhug recipe:It's The Israeli Salsa-סחוג של ציון
500 gr fresh green hot peppers
1 bundle of fresh cilantro
garlic cloves (I add 9 cloves - you can add more)
cumin
salt
olive oil (1/4 cup or less )
H O W :
1.Cut all the peppers to 3 or 4 parts , ground them in your blender. Begin with few peppers, then gradually add more and more , until all peppers are ground. [Zion says:"don't believe your seller,just taste one pepper"-remmember -it was Not my recommendation]
2. Wash the fresh cilantro and cut the bundle to 4 or 5 parts. add each part to your blender, grind as you finish all the cilantro. [Zion told me to wash the cilantro with salt and lot of water, it has sand and sometimes worms..I did it, and found sand only..]
3. Now add the garlic cloves - whole or cut up , and grind again.
4. Add salt (1/2 ts or more) , cumin (1/2-1 ts), olive oil and grind one more time (and the last one)
5. Congratulations : you've got your very green and Hot first Skhug .. transfer to a bowl , add more seasoning as you like (Zion told me to add less salt at the grinding and then to add more- to taste)
6. Fill small jars with your fresh Skhug and place in your refrigerator [Zion told me he put in his freezer some plastic jars full with Skhug, it's very good , after thawing it in the frigertor-in this way you have Skhug al the year..!]
** And now comes my secret.. with this sauce: my son asked the seller for fresh cilantro, and by mistake he gave him parsely,it was friday night, so I coudn't buy any cilantro.. So this Skhug is made of parsely .. please , don't tell anyone :-) ]


 
Adding the hot peppers, then the coriander, after that the garlic..
Adding cumin,salt, olive oil..

רוצים לקרא איך ציון לימד אותי להכין סחוג? כולל המתכון שלו-אנא לחצו על הקישור הזה וגלגלו עד תחתית העמוד. אגב: גיל חובב מוסיף גם פלפל שחור טחון והל וטוחן הכל יחד 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

חנית...פטרוזיליה?? גדול..טוב, אין לי ספק שזה טעים...אני אפילו מכירה כאלו שמכניסים נענע...בכל אופן, זה ניראה כמו סחוג למהדרין..
~

עכשיו שמעי, סבתה שלי ז"ל הייתה לוקחת אבן גדולה וקצת כעורה, יושבת על המדרגות בכניסה לבית ומרסקת בעזרת אבן בזלת אחרת קטנה את הפלפלים עם השום ואורזת לצנצנות.
כשסיימה את המלכתה, הייתה משאירה קצת הרבה מהמחית על האבן, מרסקת עגבניה..ואנחנו..אנחנו הינו מתענגים על זה עם חלה טרייה..קוראים לזה "מסחגה"..לא מהעולם הזה!
~
הסבתה כבר איננה, אבל עדיין יש את האבן..ולעיתים רחוקות אני מכינה מסחגה..רחוקות מדי

anna/village vegan said...

Oh, that's such a nice story. I wish taxi drivers here would share recipes! And your skhug looks very nice...mmmm.

MUTFAKISTAN said...

mmmmmmm very nice,sevgilerr

Chanita Harel חני הראל said...

תודה מרילין

התאור שלך עשה לי תאבון גדול, נשמע כל כך פיקנטי
ואת יודעת לכתוב מלבד לבשל..יום אחד את עוד תוציאי ספר :-)
אהיה הקונה הראשונה שלך

Chanita Harel חני הראל said...

MUTFAKISTAN ,

Thank you and Welcome ! ;-)

oldbag said...

I recently visited your wonderful country and ate something nice with my sharwma at restaurant in Eilat. Because of the language barrier, I could not find out what it was, but now I know it was Skhug. It had tomoatoes in as well. Wonderful stuff!! I hope I can find all the ingredients here in South Africa, otherwise I will have to wait until my next visit to your wonderful country. I enjoy your healthy abundant food!

Anonymous said...

during my last Israeli holiday I became a Skhug-addict, so I'm very glad to have finally found the recipe.
A great way to taste Skhug is to mix it with fresh tomato pulp - just grate some fresh Cherry tomatoes by means of a cheese grater. It makes a GREAT spread!

Ahuvah said...

Hi Chanit,

I buy Te'emani zhug in the shuk, but I decided to make it tonight to use up some hot peppers. It tastes good but it is ultra-charif!!! My hands are also burning now!

But I am very happy to have made it!

-Ahuvah

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