{"slug":"green-zhoug","collection":"to-test","is_recipe":true,"visibility":"public","title":"Green Zhoug (Yemeni Cilantro-Chili Sauce)","description":"Yemeni green chili and cilantro sauce, pounded coarse and loosened by hand with olive oil. Green cardamom is the signature. A herb sauce that happens to be hot, not a chili sauce with herbs in it.","body_md":"Zhoug (also *s'hug*, *skhug*, *zhug*) is the Yemeni table sauce that goes on flatbread, eggs, roasted vegetables, beans, rice — more or less anything. The proportions here are tuned to homegrown Thai chilies of moderate heat.\n\nThe thing to hold onto while making it: **this is a herb sauce that happens to be hot, not a chili sauce with herbs in it.** Cilantro is the bulk ingredient and the finished sauce should taste that way.\n\n1. **Toast the coriander:** Warm 1 tsp coriander seed in a dry skillet over medium heat, shaking often, until fragrant and a shade darker — 1–2 minutes. Tip it onto a plate immediately so it stops cooking.\n\n2. **Grind the spices:** Crack 6 green cardamom pods, discard the husks, and grind the seeds together with the toasted coriander seed to a coarse powder. Do **not** toast the cardamom — its volatile oils are the signature of this sauce and heat drives them off.\n\n3. **Start the paste:** Pound 4 cloves garlic, 8 green Thai chilies and 1 tsp (3g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt in a mortar until broken down into a rough paste. The salt is the abrasive and does most of the work. In a food processor, pulse in short bursts instead — never run it continuously.\n\n4. **Add the cilantro:** Add 100g (1 large bunch) fresh cilantro a handful at a time, pounding or pulsing between additions, until you have a coarse green rubble. Stop while the texture is still uneven and you can see individual flecks of leaf. A smooth purée is a different and worse sauce.\n\n5. **Season:** Work in the ground coriander and cardamom from step 2, ½ tsp ground cumin, and 30ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice.\n\n6. **Finish with the oil by hand:** Scrape everything into a bowl and stir in 120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil with a spoon. Do **not** blend the oil in — high-speed shear ruptures the polyphenols in olive oil and turns the sauce bitter.\n\n7. **Rest before judging:** Let it sit 30 minutes at room temperature. The cardamom and raw garlic both need that long to come forward, and a zhoug tasted straight off the pestle reads flat. Adjust salt and lemon at the end.\n\n## Notes\n\n- **House formulation, developed 2026-09-06.** Zhoug is a traditional Yemeni sauce with no single canonical recipe; these ratios were worked out here for homegrown Thai chilies rather than adapted from a published source.\n- **The chili count is calibrated, not generic.** Eight assumes moderate-heat Thai bird's eyes — the kind where a whole raw one chopped into a dish is comfortable. Taste one raw before committing; chilies from stressed container plants run hotter. Substituting serranos or jalapeños means roughly 3–4× the count for the same heat.\n- **Stems in.** Cilantro stems carry more flavor than the leaves; only the thick woody bottoms get trimmed. Discarding the stems is the most common way this comes out weak. 100g is *estimated* as one large supermarket bunch after trimming — weigh if you want it repeatable.\n- **It browns within 2–3 days** in the fridge. That is oxidation, not spoilage, and the flavor holds longer than the color. To freeze with the color intact, blanch the cilantro 10 seconds and shock it in ice water first — it costs a little fresh punch and buys a much greener sauce.\n- **Freezing without plastic:** scoop portions onto a stainless sheet pan, freeze solid, then transfer the pucks to a glass jar. A stainless ice-cube tray works too.\n- **Capsaicin is oil-soluble.** After handling this many chilies, rub your hands with a spoonful of neutral oil and wipe before washing with soap. Soap and water alone spreads it around, and you will find out hours later.\n- **Salt is Diamond Crystal kosher at 3g/tsp.** Morton or table salt is up to twice as dense by volume — go by the gram figure.\n- **Yield is estimated** at about 300ml, not measured.\n- Traditionally served alongside anything rich or starchy. A red version exists, made with ripe chilies and often a little tomato paste.\n","draft":false,"servings":"About 300ml (1¼ cups)","prep_time":"20 minutes","total_time":"50 minutes, including a 30-minute rest","source_name":"Original","created_at":"2026-09-06T14:32:30.112169Z","updated_at":"2026-09-06T14:34:58.070681Z","categories":["Condiment"],"tags":["Chilis","Cilantro","Garlic","make-ahead","Middle Eastern","Quick","Spicy","Vegan","Vegetarian"],"methods":["No-Cook"],"themes":["Vegan","Vegetarian","Yemeni"],"ingredients":[{"section":"","items":["100g (1 large bunch) fresh cilantro, trimmed","8 green Thai chilies (about 15g), stemmed","4 cloves garlic, peeled","1 tsp coriander seed","6 green cardamom pods","½ tsp ground cumin","1 tsp (3g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus more to taste","30ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice","120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil"],"parsed":[{"raw":"100g (1 large bunch) fresh cilantro, trimmed","qty":100,"unit":"g","item":"fresh cilantro","prep":"trimmed"},{"raw":"8 green Thai chilies (about 15g), stemmed","qty":8,"item":"green Thai chilies","prep":"stemmed"},{"raw":"4 cloves garlic, peeled","qty":4,"unit":"clove","item":"garlic","prep":"peeled"},{"raw":"1 tsp coriander seed","qty":1,"unit":"tsp","item":"coriander seed"},{"raw":"6 green cardamom pods","qty":6,"item":"green cardamom pods"},{"raw":"½ tsp ground cumin","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"ground cumin"},{"raw":"1 tsp (3g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus more to taste","qty":1,"unit":"tsp","item":"Diamond Crystal kosher salt","prep":"plus more to taste"},{"raw":"30ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice","qty":30,"unit":"ml","item":"lemon juice"},{"raw":"120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil","qty":120,"unit":"ml","item":"extra-virgin olive oil"}]}],"qc":{"status":"unchecked","findings_count":0,"stale":false}}