Seasoned Ghee

This is a ghee enriched with herbs and spices suitable for seasoning most  Ethiopian dishes (or wherever you feel like getting creative).  You can save yourself some money by rendering butter down in to ghee, but I'll save that for another time.  Note, however, that since some of the things we're infusing in to the ghee have quite a bit of moisture they have to be cooked off for long enough to not have any moisture left to prevent the end product from going bad (I've actually seen a moisture rich layer on the bottom mold under the ghee).  You also don't want to brown the mixture, so it's low heat with a lot of attention.

12 oz ghee
1 small red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t kalonji, ground
thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 t cardamom
1 t oregano
handfull of fresh basil
dash of turmeric

Heat everything together over low heat until all the moisture has cooked off, but without letting it brown.  Strain it and refrigerate in an air tight container where it should keep for months if you got all the moisture out.

Berbere

An Ethiopian blend of spices that combines influences from all over.  You'll need a pretty serious collection of spices to make this, so you might want to shell out the extra money for commercially prepared if you don't do a lot of global cooking, though accept that it won't be as fresh.  This version is fairly spicy, so you can substitute out some of the hotter ground chiles for paprika as needed, and recipes for this spice mix can vary wildly.

3/4 C ground dried hot red chiles
1/4 C paprika
2 T salt
2 t onion powder
2 t ground ginger
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground allspice
1 1/4 t ground cardamom
1 t grated nutmeg
1 t ground fenugreek seeds
1/2 t ground kalonji

Mix it all together, with a spice grinder being the easiest way of dealing with the whole spices.  Store them in an airtight container.