🧀 Ayib

Ayib is a soft Ethiopian curd cheese. It is made from sour milk (ergo) or, more often, from the buttermilk left after churning butter from sour milk. The buttermilk is heated in a clay pot over a low fire to about 40–50 °C until the curd separates; the pot is then cooled, the whey is drained through a straw or fibre “filter” (for example, made from the fibres of enset, the “false banana”), and the curd is moved to a clean container.

According to the FAO, 8 litres of buttermilk yield about 1 kg of ayib; it contains roughly 80% water, about 15% protein and less than 2% fat. Because of its high moisture, ayib does not keep long — about a week; pasteurising the curd and removing more of the whey extend its shelf life.

Ayib is a crumbly, low-fat product, similar in texture to crumbly cottage cheese or ricotta. It is served with doro wat, a spicy chicken stew, and injera flatbread, mixed with stewed cabbage, butter and hot pepper, and eaten with kitfo (minced raw beef). Fresh ayib softens the heat of Ethiopian spices.