Cemen paste substitutes

The real thing, and it is a four-ingredient blend rather than a manufactured product, so making it is easier than finding it.

Best for

coating pastirma, serving as a meze with bread, spreading in sandwiches, rubbing on meat before roasting, stirring into stews for depth

Mix the dry spices first, then add water a spoonful at a time until it is the consistency of thick mustard, and let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the ground fenugreek hydrates and swells. It will thicken further overnight, so loosen it with more water before using. Start with less fenugreek than you think, because too much turns the paste soapy and aggressively bitter, and grate the garlic to a paste rather than chopping it.

The fastest route if your cupboard has Turkish pepper paste but not the full spice line-up.

Best for

meze and spreads, sandwiches with pastirma, quick rubs for grilled meat, adding depth to soups and beans

Pepper paste brings a concentrated sweet-roasted pepper flavour and often salt and oil, so the result is glossier, saltier and fruitier than real cemen, which is drier and more austere. The fenugreek is non-negotiable and one teaspoon is enough to make it read as cemen. Rest it thirty minutes before tasting, since raw ground fenugreek tastes harsher than hydrated fenugreek.

A supermarket chilli paste standing in for the pepper-and-garlic base.

Best for

spreads and sandwiches, marinades, when you want a hot version

Harissa is much hotter than cemen and comes loaded with caraway, coriander and cumin, so the paste tastes North African and spiky rather than Anatolian and pungent, and the caraway in particular fights with the fenugreek. Use it when heat is welcome, cut it with a spoonful of tomato paste and a little olive oil to soften it, and do not add any further chilli.

The other fenugreek, useful if the leaf is what you have, with the important caveat that it behaves nothing like the seed.

Best for

adding fenugreek aroma to a rub or a stew, when the paste is a seasoning rather than a coating

Dried fenugreek leaf is hay-like, gently savoury and only faintly bitter, where the seed is pungent, sharply bitter and slightly maple-scented. It also will not thicken, because the paste's body comes from ground seed swelling in water, so you get flavour without structure and the mixture stays loose. Add a spoonful of ground almonds or breadcrumbs if you need it to hold together.

A genuine last resort, since most curry powders contain fenugreek among many other things.

Best for

emergencies, cooked dishes where cemen is a background flavour

You get some fenugreek, and you also get turmeric, coriander, cumin and often cinnamon, so the paste turns yellow-brown and tastes unmistakably of curry. In a spread eaten plain with bread this is obviously wrong. Stirred into a stew or a marinade where it is one of several flavours, it passes. Do not use it on pastirma, where the coating is tasted directly.

The honest option when you have no fenugreek in any form: make a good garlic and pepper paste and do not pretend it is cemen.

Best for

rubbing on lamb or beef before roasting, spreading on bread, seasoning kofte

Nothing in an ordinary spice rack tastes like fenugreek. Its bitterness and maple-savoury aroma are why cemen tastes the way it does, so a paste without it is a pleasant garlic and paprika paste and not a substitute. Made with two tablespoons of sweet paprika, four grated garlic cloves, a teaspoon of cumin, olive oil and salt, it is a genuinely useful thing to have, just a different one.