Schoog
Much to my surprise, I got a great reaction to my entry in the Superbowl Chili Cookoff we had at work on Friday. I entered in the Salsa category (the others being Chili, obviously, and Guacamole) with a Yemenite recipe called schoog* that my Mom used to make — Yemeni Jews brought it to Israel, where it’s quite popular with falafel. I tied with another entrant in the popular vote; she won the judges’ vote (the organizer quipped that they went for the American salsa. Heh.) But people kept saying good things about it, and several asked me for the recipe, so here it is:
Makes about 2 cups
- 4 bunches cilantro
- 8 or more serrano chiles
- 8 cloves of garlic
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- pinch of ground cardamom
Coarsely chop the cilantro, peppers and garlic. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree. Adjust lemon, salt and chiles to taste. This is meant to be very hot — but you should still be able to taste the components. I especially like it with grilled meats.
* pronunciation: the ch in schoog is a voiceless velar fricative or, informally, a hard ch, like in loch, Bach or Channukah. In other words, it sounds like ‘K’ ;-)
Janice says:
looks good. Still unclear on the pronunciation. Is it SKOOG? or CHOOG?
Daisy says:
First of all Congratulations! It sounds good but not like my Yemenese schoog at all. I was hoping to catch a formal recipe of my schoog and lamb but I’ll have to keep on searching. My schoog isn’t green.