The Horn · Volume 11, The Indian Ocean Kitchen
Xawaash
Somalia and Djibouti, by way of Aden
Illustration
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 103 sources in the brief
- Reviewed
- Awaiting a reader from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Awaiting a cook report
Xawaash is the spine. It is in the rice, the pasta sauce, the goat, the soup and the small dice, and it is why a Somali plate does not taste like an Ethiopian one despite sharing a border and half a bread. Calling it the garam masala of Somalia is fair so long as you note that garam masala is not a substitute: heavier on clove and cassia, usually no turmeric, and it will push a bariis medicinal. Every household has its own, and the formula below is one house's rather than the house's.
As tradition built it
Makes about 1 1/4 cups. 15 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 cinnamon stick, 5 cm
- 1/2 cup cumin seeds
- 1/2 cup coriander seeds
- 2 tbsp black peppercorns
- 6 green cardamom pods
- 1 tsp whole cloves
- 2 tbsp ground turmeric
Method
- Smash the cinnamon stick inside a sealed bag with a rolling pin. Bark does not grind at the same rate as seed.
- Dry toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, green cardamom pods and whole cloves, everything except the turmeric, over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 2 minutes, until aromatic. Not dark. On a small oil-rich seed the window between aromatic and acrid is very short.
- Cool completely before grinding. Warm seeds smear their oils on the grinder walls and cake rather than powder.
- Grind, then sift and regrind the tailings. Coriander husk and cinnamon bark break down last, and unsifted xawaash reads gritty.
- Whisk in the ground turmeric last, raw. Keeps 6 months, cool and dark.
Notes
After Hawa Hassan, In Bibi's Kitchen (2020).
Look at the ratio. Half a cup each of cumin and coriander against two tablespoons of pepper and six cardamom pods is four parts seed base to one part accent. Xawaash is a cumin and coriander blend, and cooks who lead with cinnamon are cooking something else.
What a modern chef changes
Split the blend in three and add each part at its own moment
Rung 3
Method
- Grind to order, never more than three months of it. Whole spices hold a year; the ground blend loses its volatile fraction in weeks.
- Split it into a base, a bloom and a finish. The base is cumin, coriander and pepper, into hot ghee for 30 to 45 seconds at the start of any dish, because those aromatics extract into fat far better than into water. The bloom is cassia and clove, added with the liquid so the eugenol has something to dissolve into. The finish is turmeric and cardamom, added in the last few minutes.
- Grind the cardamom last and use the seeds only, discarding the husks. This is the difference between rice that smells expensive and rice that smells yellow.