Dukkah - recipe

Dukkah (or dukka or duqqa) is a North African condiment most usually attributed to Egypt and which comes in many different guises - the simplest being a few herbs, salt and pepper sold in paper cones for use in the home, the most complex being a mixture of herbs, spices, salt, pepper, seeds and nuts (traditionally hazelnuts, which I think work best).

It's one of those things I've been meaning to knock up in the kitchen for a while, but had sort of forgotten about it until a meal at Drunken Butcher's, in which he served it as part of the starter. So I sat down, read through a ream of recipes and tried a few out until I was happy with what I was eating.

This recipe started life as Yotam Ottolenghi's dukkah recipe, but I wasn't happy with the taste and I found using pre-skinned and ready toasted sesame seeds a lot easier, plus the poppy seeds add a depth of flavour you don't get in the original recipe; so this is my personal version.

Traditionally, all dukkahs are made to personal taste with each chef, cook, home and restaurant producing their own version. As there's no set recipe for what to include, use this as your starting block and then add anything you fancy. Have fun!

Dukkah
15 mins - makes a jam jar full.

Ingredients
50g hazelnuts (skin off)
2 tblsp sunflower seeds
2 tblsp pumpkin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tblsp cumin seeds
3 tblsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp nigella (kalonji/black onion) seeds
2 tblsp toasted sesame seeds (you can just toast your own at home if can't find toasted)
3 tblsp poppy seeds
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp sea salt (I used Maldon, but any good quality, flaky one will do)
Good few grinds of black pepper (I used about ten).

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 160c and put the hazelnuts on a baking tray. Pop in the oven and keep an eye on them to avoid burning them. They'll need cooking for about ten minutes; you want them a deep golden brown, but not burnt.

2. After five minutes, add the sunflower and pumpkin seeds to the baking tray and return to the oven. If you're toasting your own sesame seeds, add them two minutes before the nuts/seeds need to come out.

3. Whilst the nuts and seeds are baking, dry fry the whole spices one at a time in a dry frying pan on a medium hot heat. Each of the spices is done when they become fragrant - this time differs from a few seconds to about half a minute for each one. Stand over the pan and when you smell them, pop them into a spice grinder or pestle and mortar.

4. When all the whole spices have been toasted, grind them. I like to keep mine quite chunky so you get a good bit of texture in your dukkah (it's easier to do this in a pestle and mortar), but it's up to you. Once you've ground them, pop them into a jam jar with the salt, pepper, paprika, poppy seeds and toasted sesame seeds (if you're not toasting your own).

5. Take the nuts and seeds out of the oven and tip onto a wooden chopping board. Give them a minute to cool and then roughly chop them. I chopped mine into coriander seed size, but again, it's up to you how fine you make them. I do feel a bit of chunk means you can taste them better.

6. Add the nuts and seeds to the jar and screw on the lid. Shake around till it's all combined and then stick your finger in (or a bread stick) to taste - add more salt, pepper, chilli, nuts, seeds etc as required for your taste.

7. This will keep in the jar for a week or two, but I bet you can't make it last past a few days - you'll end up putting it on everything!

How to use: Dukkah is traditionally used as a dip with bread or vegetables, but it makes a great addition to salads, on toast with butter, on top of avocado on toast, with eggs. I mostly eat it with:

Avocado mushed onto brown toast with lemon and olive oil or

Lentils stirred through with harissa and lemon, topped with roasted tomatoes and soft boiled eggs rolled in dukkah.














Dukkah goes with: eggs, avocado, bulgar wheat, cous cous, spices, yoghurt, bread, veg crudités, humus, tomatoes, lentils, chilli, squash, parsley, coriander. 

NB: Toasted sesame seeds can be hard or expensive to track down in the supermarket, I usually have better luck in the Chinese or Asian supermarkets.

Tip: If you cook with a lot of spices, eschew the over priced/tiny packaged dust you find in the supermarket spice isle and either find the Asian part of your supermarket (larger supermarkets in or around cities are better for this) or Asian stores (in areas such as Rusholme) and buy spices from them. They come in much bigger bags and are better quality. A jar of nigella seeds in my local large supermarket is £1.50 (20g), a bag of them from the Asian isle in the same supermarket is 99p (300g).

If you're struggling to find spices because you don't live near a big city, then try Spices of India, good value large packs or try Bart Spices or Spice Mountain if you just want small amount and very good quality.