Ayib
Ethiopia's soft, crumbly fresh cheese, made from the buttermilk left after churning butter.
Also: አይብ, ayibe, aib
Ayib is the everyday fresh cheese of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Milk is first allowed to sour and is churned, traditionally in a clay pot or gourd, to make butter, which becomes the spiced butter niter kibbeh. The sour buttermilk that remains is warmed gently until soft curds separate, and these are scooped out and drained. The result is mild, moist and crumbly, rather like cottage cheese or a dry ricotta. Ayib is eaten with injera beside fiery dishes such as kitfo and doro wat, where it cools the heat of berbere, and it is often mixed with greens and spices as ayib be gomen. It is not ripened and is eaten within days.