Kulet: Ethiopian simmer sauce – What is it?
I get asked a lot: What is a simmer sauce? What do you use it for? Ethiopian simmer sauce, a base sauce known as “kulet” in Ethiopia, is the main product we carry in our online store. I am here to answer your questions about kulet in this month’s blog.
When I first moved to Oregon, I missed food from my home in Ethiopia. I had a full-time accounting job and was also going to night college—so I had very little time to cook. At that time, there were no prepared Ethiopian foods in stores, and this is the reason I created my first Ethiopian simmer sauces: for convenience in preparation, and so I could have a taste of home!
Any Ethiopian stew-making starts by developing the kulet. There are two kinds of kulet: one with berbere, and the other with turmeric. Three simple ingredients make up both of these sauces: onions, oil, and a spice blend. The sauces are then seasoned with ginger and garlic. In the turmeric sauce, called “alicha”, you simply add turmeric instead of the spicier berbere.
Berbere spice Yellow split peas with Turmeric sauce
To make the yellow split peas in the picture above, simply mix 1/2 jar of our turmeric sauce, one cup of yellow split peas and 6 cups of water. Cook over medium heat for about 40 minutes or until split peas are done. Add salt to taste.
Kulet cooked with berbere takes a longer time to simmer, because berbere is a blend of many spices and chilis (Get the recipe for berbere here). The largest portion of this sauce is fresh onions, and the amount of time you cook the sauce depends on how many onions you use. The more onions you add, the longer it takes to cook. For special occasions, when you want a thicker sauce, you will use lots of onions and it will need to cook for much longer.
The basic ingredients in both the mild and the hot kulet are similar except that the mild sauce has tomato added to the chili blend, and this makes the sauce mild. This is also traditional in Ethiopian cooking. Many people assume that the mild sauce is made with less chilis, for an American palate—but this sauce is just as traditional in Ethiopia as the hot kulet. To make Ethiopian stew, all that is required is to add your protein (usually lentils or meat) to this sauce, and cook for as long as it takes to fully cook the lentils or meat.
When there are big events, people will simply make a large amount of these three basic sauces, and add different kinds of protein to make a variety of stews.
Since preparing the sauce is the most time-consuming part of making the stew, I’m sure you can understand why it was important for me to create these sauces. I hope that the convenience of these pre-made simmer sauces makes it easy for you to enjoy a taste of traditional Ethiopian food in your own home!