Grains of Selim ✦

Baies de Selim

What it is

In Wolof the twisted pods are djar, and their most visible job is café Touba — coffee roasted with them, a recipe credited to the Sufi sheikh Amadou Bamba and now sold on every street corner in Dakar. Before the sea route to India opened, European traders shipped the same pods as Guinea pepper and sold them in place of the real thing.

In the kitchen

Use them whole and pull them out like a bay leaf: crack two or three, simmer twenty minutes in a broth, then remove them. Left in, the eucalyptus note turns hard and bitter.

Goes with

Coffee Chicken Onion Ginger Black pepper Clove Rice Lime

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