The Hirshon Ethiopian Awaze Sauce – አዋዜ

Awaze Image Used Under Creative Commons License From yelp.com

Citizens, your Glorious Leader is inordinately fond of the cuisine of Ethiopia – and this delicious spicy sauce is my favorite complement to it! 🙂

Ethiopian cuisine (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ምግብ) characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes. This is usually in the form of wat (also w’et or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread, which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour. Ethiopians eat exclusively with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. Utensils are optional.

Awaze (aka “Spicy Simmer Sauce” in the Ethiopian language of Amharic) is ridiculously easy to make and is served with most main courses in Ethiopia – it’s the ingredients that are difficult to find in the U.S.!

The variety of awaze I prefer is called “deleh” and only has 3 ingredients: the Ethiopian berbere spice mix, Ethiopian honey wine known as “t’ej” and oil. Finding good berbere and tej isn’t easy, but I will give you my recipe for berbere and a source for pre-made, as well as t’ej.

You will LOVE this delicious and exotic condiment, my Citizens! 😀

Battle on – The Generalissimo

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3 tablespoons of berbere – try the Hirshon Ethiopian Berbere or buy an excellent pre-made version here
9 tablespoons of t’ej (or red wine if unavailable) – buy t’ej here
1 tablespoon of oil

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Combine all. Increase proportionally as needed, store in fridge.