I love Ethiopian food. I love eating with my fingers and the bread, I love the flavors, I love telling the server I don't love spicy food and leaving the choice of what I'm eating in his or her hands. But making Ethiopian food was more than a little intimidating. Ethiopian cuisine is based on stews of vegetables, lentils, and meat served on and scooped up with flatbread called injera. Chicken, beef, and lamb are common, especially on special occasions, but pork is never eaten. The two most prevalent flavoring agents are niter kibbeh, or spiced ghee, and berbere, a hot pepper-based paste. Most dishes contain cardamom and ginger; garlic and onions are common as well. Many Ethiopians drink a honey wine called tej on special occasions. I didn't have this, but I did have a bottle of mead sitting around!
If I knew of a place to buy injera, the flat, spongy bread, I probably would have. I definitely didn't plan on making as many dishes as I did! I split up the work over several days: I made the niter kibbeh and started the injera on Friday (it had to sit for three days before being cooked), made the two lentil dishes on Sunday night because I knew they'd reheat well, and made everything else on Monday. Altogether, about 5 or 6 hours of active cooking time. I cooked for Ben and his dad, who was in town to help him move (to my neighborhood, yay!). Luckily, Papa Ben isn't a picky eater! I ended up making sega wat (beef in a zesty-ish sauce), mesir wat (stewed red lentils), kik alicha (yellow split peas), atakilt wat (stewed vegetables), alicha doro wat (chicken in a mild sauce), and kitfo (seasoned raw beef). Even though the injera didn't come out quite right (probably because I used all purpose flour instead of teff), everyone seemed to enjoy it, and the leftovers are fantastic. I'll probably make one or two of these dishes at a time in the future to just eat with a fork or over rice.
Niter Kibbeh1 stick butter
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp black pepper, curry powder, turmeric, garlic powder, onion powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground clove or allspice
pinch of cinnamon
Heat the butter. Skim off the foamy part, stir in the spices. Pour into a container and refrigerate until use.
Note: The really authentic way to do this is to let the whole spices sit in the butter until their flavor steeps into the butter, then strain them out. I was lazy.
Injera
3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups water
1 packet active dry yeast
1/2 tsp baking powder
salt to taste
Combine the first three ingredients. Cover and leave on the counter, stirring daily, for three days. Add the baking powder and salt, then make like crepes (spread by tilting the pan) in a nonstick skillet. Injera is done when it comes off easily without sticking.
Atakilt Wat
4 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 1/2 cups cauliflower, broken into small pieces
4-5 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp paprika
pinch ground cardamom
1 cup fresh or frozen green beans
1/2 cup water
salt to taste
1 tbsp niter kibbeh
Saute the first three vegetables in the oil until softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and spices, cook for a minute, then add water and green beans. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the niter kibbeh at the end and adjust seasonings to taste.
Kitfo
3/4 lb freshly ground beef
1 small onion, finely chopped or sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 cup niter kibbeh
1 tsp ground ginger
Berbere sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the onion, garlic, butter, and spices together in a small skillet until the onions are soft and translucent. Toss with the meat, season with salt and pepper. Serve warm.
Note: You can also cook the beef after combining the ingredients. But it was delicious raw.
Kik Alicha
1 cup yellow split peas, rinsed
3 cups water, plus more if needed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp salt, to taste (I used more)
1 tbsp niter kibbeh
Boil the peas with the water for about 30-45 minutes until tender. Saute the onion with the oil until softened, then add the garlic and turmeric and cook for one more minute. Add to the peas, with more water if necessary, and simmer another 30 minutes or until peas are mushy. Add the niter kibbeh and serve.
Mesir Wat
1 cup dried red lentils, rinsed
2 cups water, plus more as needed
1 T. paprika
1 T. onion powder
¾ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. ground cardamom
¼ - ½ tsp. cayenne pepper, to taste
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. ground allspice
1/8 tsp. ground clove (or additional allspice)
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 T. tomato paste
1-2 tsp. brown sugar
1 cup water
1 tbsp niter kibbeh
Simmer the lentils with 2 cups water until soft, about 30 minutes. Mix the spices with the tomato paste, sugar, and water, then add to the lentils.Continue to simmer and stir until lentils form a paste, adding more water if necessary. Add the niter kibbeh and stir until melted.
Doro Alicha
2 onions, finely sliced
1/4 cup niter kibbeh
1 lb chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tbsp lime juice
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt and pepper to taste
Cook the onions in a nonstick skillet without fat until softened. Add the butter and spices. Add the chicken, lime juice, wine, and water. Simmer for at least 45 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated, adding more water if necessary.
Sega Wat
2 onions
1 lb beef for stew
1/4 cup niter kibbeh
1 T. paprika
1 T. onion powder
¾ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. ground cardamom
¼ - ½ tsp. cayenne pepper, to taste
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. ground allspice
1/8 tsp. ground clove (or additional allspice)
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup water
Cook onions without oil in a nonstick skillet until softened. Add butter and spices, stir well. Add beef, water, and wine. Simmer at least 45 minutes, adding more water if necessary, until sauce is reduced.
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| My bottle of mead had been sitting on my wine rack so long it actually had dust! |
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| Injera cooking in my electric skillet |
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| The feast, with extra cayenne pepper for Ben |
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| Close-up of the food |
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| The injera wasn't pretty, but it got the job done |
I'm a friend of Katie's from "Date Me, DC." My mother is Eritrean, and I have to say, you've done some amazing stuff, here. Eritrean and Ethiopian food is pretty similar, save that the Italian influence on Eritrea results in the use of tomato in a few places.
ReplyDeleteI get my injera at Marhaba Market, 3819-G S. George Mason Drive, in Falls Church. They also sell bottles of teff (which, as the world's smallest grain, tends to behave like a liquid in its ground form), so if you feel like recreating the experience of making your own again, that's an option. If you find yourself in DC, you can pick injera up at the little store attached to Dukem on U street, but I greatly prefer the berbere at Marhaba Market--much spicier and a much nicer bite to it.
Berbere itself is the consolidation of most of the spices you've included, but it's generally used wet, in a form called something like dillih (I haven't really settled on a transliteration of the glottals that collide at the end of the word), which starts by cooking an onion in water till it dissolves, adding berbere until it forms a paste, and then adding kibbeh, ginger, pepper, and garlic. The paste is then cooled and refrigerated. It makes a surprisingly pronounced difference in the finished dishes--not that there's anything wrong with working from dry spices, and not that I generally go through the trouble myself. If anything, I think it has to do with a difference in how the spices cook when they're hydrated versus when they're dry.
When I was growing up in Cleveland, there wasn't really any kind of Ethiopian or Eritrean community there, so I saw the long experimentation process while they tried to make their own injera. My grandfather, who was a machinist, actually converted an old drum washing machine into a kind of electric kettle with a cast-iron top. It works... but having gone through the process enough times to learn it, I have to say that I'm happy to leave the bakers to it. The basic problem, as it is with any sour dough, is that working without a sponge makes it difficult to get a fine enough texture on the first generation of bubbles. So either you end up with basically flat injera that didn't bubble enough, or injera the height of a pancake because it bubbled enough, but the bubbles were huge.
In terms of kitfo, my trick for making it has always been this: most contamination in U.S. meat happens on the surface. I buy a large roast and cut two inches off of each side. The outside sections I turn into zighini (the Eritrean version of sega wat). The inside, I grind with the grinder attachment to my stand mixer and serve.
The major element of Eritrean cuisine that doesn't have an Ethiopian analog is silsi, which is kind of a tomato sauce enriched by berbere. Typically we'd dip kicha into it, which are just cornmeal crackers made from water, corn, salt, and a bit of spice painted onto a hot griddle, then lifted off and dried in the oven.
Adam - Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I'm going to wait at least a few months before tackling Eritrea, but I'll definitely make silsi, the berbere for real, and either get or make better injera. I'd love to have you cook with me if you're interested, local, and we can schedule.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I can facilitate this relationship! Adam is an AMAZING cook!!! I ate his risotto for a whole week after our last dinner party club.
ReplyDeleteHey there! I was hunting about for information on silsi and happened upon your blog. Meaza at Bailey's Crossroads is a terrific restaurant and you can also buy injera there. Dama, also on Columbia Pike, is another source. I also saw it, of all places, at a 7-11 at the intersection of Duke and Howard Street.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in Eritrean food, there's a terrific little restaurant on Pickett Street in Alexandria--Café Aurora. I learned about it on WETA's recent program about breakfast in the DC area. Dishes to try include Fu'ul (a mashed fava bean stew), Kilcha (I think of it as Eritrean stuffing for breakfast) and, of course, Eggs Silsi.
BB