Ethiopian recipes

[Mudpuppie]

I'm a big fan of Ethiopian food (and a vegetarian) and would like to learn how to make it at home. Sources I've found on the web haven't been all that helpful.

Anyone have any recipes/techniques to share, or other suggestions?

Thanks a lot.

[edsel]

Amanda,

I love Ethiopian food too! Assuming that dairy products are OK, there are lots of Ethiopian dishes to explore. I'll adapt one favorite recipe from a cookbook I have at hand:

Ye'abesha Gomen

1 lb collard greens

1 cup red onions

4 medium green chilis (e.g. Anaheim)

2 c water

1/2 t. garlic, chopped

16 oz. butter or oil

salt to taste

Ah, yes, the notorious "salt to taste".

Wash the collards and chop them (I like to make a fine chifonade - don't know how authentic that is). Seed the peppers and cut them into strips.

Cook the onions in a dry pan until they begin to brown. Add the oil / butter (I recommend Ethiopian-style clarified butter). Add the collards and cook until most of the moisture is cooked out. Add remaining ingredients and cook for ten minutes longer.

There's a variant with dry-curd cottage cheese that's one of my favorites - can't seem to find it at the moment.

It's possible to find t'ef in U.S. grocery stores now, so injera is a fairly easy thing to do.

[Mudpuppie]

Yum. I love the collard greens dish. Will give it a try.

I expected it to have lots more spices and stuff.

Thanks.

[tsquare]

Years ago I bought a cookbook from the Mennonites. (Did I spell that right?) They do outreach around the world, help establish craft collaboratives and such. The recipes run from festival foods to what locals offer out of limited supplies and cooking options. I recall a few Ethiopian dishes in there. Might be titled Hands Across the World. Bummer not having the computer and cookbooks in the same location. I'll double check on this and get back to you.

[edsel]

I expected it to have lots more spices and stuff.

Not all Ethiopian food is spicy, though the recipes can be misleading. When they call for butter it's sometines implied that they're using the herbed/spiced butter (nit'ir qibe). Clarify butter with lot's of ginger, garlic, foenugreek, cumin, cardamom, etc., and it will pick up a bit of "zip".

I found the other collard recipe:

Ayib be Gomen

1 lb collards

1 lb cottage cheese (I use dry-curd)

1 t. black pepper

3 T. butter

salt to taste

Wash, shred and blanche the collards. Mix the butter, black pepper, and cottage cheese. Add the drained collards.

Again, I assume they mean spiced butter, plus I add a bit of toasted and ground foenugreek for some added zing.

Ethiopian is one of the cuisines that can be served in vegetarian form without apology. Not that you should apologize. While there are lots of meat, fish, and fowl dishes in Ethiopian tradition, there are so many wonderful dishes that contain no meat that you'll have a great time exploring the possibilities.

When serving Ethiopian food to a "mixed" crowd (some vegetarian, some not), I place the vegetarian items on the main platter of injera and use a smaller side-platter for the meat dishes. I honestly think that the carnivores wouldn't complain if the meat dishes were ommitted entirely.

[Mudpuppie]

This is great. Thank you.

Keep 'em coming.

[skchai]

Daniel Jote Mesfin did come out with a revised version of his Exotic Ethiopian Cooking in 1994. It's still as far as I know the only Ethiopian cookbook published in English with anything like a national distribution, although most pan-African cookbooks will have a few Ethiopian recipes as well.

The Rastafarian-oriented "Haile Sellassie WWW" site contains a number of Ethiopian recipes, some of which seem to be pulled out of Mesfin's book. It also contains a detailed blurb for Mesfin's book

[tsquare]

The Mennonite cookbook is titled "Extending the Table: a world cookbook" by Joetta Handrich Schlabach. Published 1991 Herald Press. A "more-with-less" spirit.

The Ethiopian recipes are:

beef wat

chicken wat

injera (flatbread)

berbere (hot pepper seasoning)

lentil salad

spicy tea bread

alecha (vegetable stew)

The last uses oil, garlic and onions sauteed till soft.

Water, potatoes, carrots, salt, ginger, tumeric, pepper.

Cabbage, water, salt, and green chili pepper.

It's a very nice cookbook to have.

Edited February 11, 2004 by tsquare (log)

[zora]

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ethiopian chapter from the Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors was really good. Especially the lamb with cardamom recipe.

There are recipes for the basic red-chile spice mix, and for the spiced butter. All strong and well seasoned--no watering down or major shortcuts (though the spice mix does call for red wine--authentic? I doubt it--but it doesn't hurt).

The Frug's injera recipe, however, is useless--calls for using club soda to get the bubbly effect, rather than letting the batter ferment. I've only been able to make decent injera by cobbling together different recipes, and it never really turns out well--a friend finally collared our fave eritrean restaurant owner and got the recipe out of him--haven't tried it yet.

[Rachel Perlow]

Here's an eGulletified Amazon link:

The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother

Please support eGullet by making Amazon links that give eGullet a commission. Click here for instructions. Thanks.

[Sleepy_Dragon]

I've got an Ethiopian cookbook, but can't find a web link for it at the moment. It's called "Taste of Ethiopia: The Other Good Food", by Webayehu Tsegaye / Merkato Market. It seems good though I haven't tried to make anything out of it yet, mostly because I keep shying away from making injera, without which the meal would be sorely lacking!

There are around 60 recipes in it broken down into Breakfast, Vegetarian (21 recipes in this section alone), Poultry Meat & Fish, Snacks, Breads and Beverages, plus separate sections on making the base spice mixes, sauces and pastes, and one on ingredient translation and explanation. More things are pictured than not.

There is contact info in the book if you want to try this route: MerkatoUSA@aol.com. Or (202) 483-9499.

Pat

Edited March 8, 2004 by Sleepy_Dragon (log)

[scott123]

I was a vegetarian for 10 years and for a large part of that I practically lived on Ethiopian food. During that time and since, I've been pondering and researching ways of replicating it at home. There are many mediocre Ethiopian recipes out there. I have tens of Berbere recipes and not one am I happy with. Berbere is a lot like garam masala - everyone has a slightly different recipe and the majority of recipes you find can be heavy handed with the cloves(imo).

Can I take a moment and vent about all the crummy recipes on SOAR (now some other name) that get copied all over the globe? I'm sure you've seen the yemiser wat recipe floating around. None of the countless Ethiopian restaurants I've ever been to has put frozen peas in their yemiser wat.

My favorite dish, made by my favorite restaurant is yemiser alecha (I think some restaurants refer to it as kik alecha). If you've had veggie platters, it's the yellow looking stuff :) Since I haven't been able to find a recipe, I've been trying to develop something myself. On the menu, it was described as a mild lentil dish with butter, ginger and garlic. From looking at it, I could tell there were also onions and anaheim peppers.

Red Lentils

Onions

anaheim peppers

Ginger

Garlic

Butter

Salt

I've made this a few times and it's been excrutiatingly close to the real thing. After reading this thread and thinking about butter, it's probably herbed/spiced butter (nit'ir qibe). I'll give that a shot.

The best barometer for any cookbook/collection of recipes you find is the injera recipe. As the previous post noted, soda water is a no-no. And recipes not using teff are a bad sign as well. Good luck.

Edited March 8, 2004 by scott123 (log)

[zora]

Thanks for that book tip, Sleepy Dragon--I just sent the guy an email...I hope it's still available.

I haven't noticed any logical correlation between injera and the rest of the dishes in any given collection of Ethiopian recipes. As I said, the Frug has great recipes _except_ for the injera, but then some African cookbook I had was generally crap, but went into a lot of detail about teff and everything (and how it was impossible to get here--in the 80s, when the book was published). I remember that recipe actually turned out pretty well (substituting buckwheat for the teff, incidentally)--but now the cookbook is lost, and I can't remember the name.

I'd guess that a better way of judging a collection would be by the spiced butter and berbere mix recipes, as they're the basis for everything--if they're weak everything else will be too. Good spiced butter really pulls it all together--especially on that lentil dish...

[Sleepy_Dragon]

You're welcome, I hope they're still around and come through for you.

The book is a bit rough in places, there are liberal uses of "salt to taste" in this one too. But overall it seems pretty clear. I mean, most of the hot foods are stews, hehe.

Anyway, here is the book's recipe for the Niter Kibe (spiced butter):

1 lbs unsalted butter

3 tbsp chopped garlic

3 tbsp chopped ginger

1 small onion chopped

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cardamom powder

1 tsp basil

1 tsp savory

1 tsp koseret (*)

1. Melt the butter over moderate heat in a heavy sauce pan.

2. Melt it slowly and completely without letting it brown or burn.

3. Increase the heat and bring it to a boil.

4. Add all the ingredients and stir continuously, to mix well.

5. Simmer gently for 10 to 15 minutes at low temperature or until the foam disappear from the top, stir continuously.

6. Remove the pan from heat and let it settle for about 5 minutes.

7. Strain in to a container; store in a cool, dry place. Requires refrigeration.

(*) The book claims there is no English translation for koseret, but from poking around on the web, it seems to be Lippia Javanica.

Also, there is no mention of using soda water for the injera, and the recipes specify 2 cups teff plus 2 cups self-rising flour, Rice or Barley flour, but you can use 100% teff if it is abundant enough.

Happy hunting and cooking. My tiny little kitchen makes it tough to make large flat things like injera, though I suppose I could just make many many small ones instead. Hmm...

Pat

Edited March 10, 2004 by Sleepy_Dragon (log)

[Sleepy_Dragon]

I found some koseret the other day, here is a pic:

Actual size is smaller by a factor of 3 or so.

It's got a light herbacious taste, reminds me of basil, but with a different kind of floral to it. Seems very pleasant.

Pat

[zora]

Cool--thanks for the koseret pic! I just got that cookbook in the mail...looking forward to trying it.

[Camdon]

Mesfin's book seems to be the book of choice for my family and all of my mom's friends. The recipes are sometime poorly written but it's a good book overall.

My only notes would be don't fear the kibe. Some might be shocked by the copious amounts of butter used but it's not a typo. My grandmother would smack me in the head if she saw how (comparatively) little kibe I use to cook.

Second, you should add some ginger to your Ye'abesha Gomen.

My favorite dish, made by my favorite restaurant is yemiser alecha (I think some restaurants refer to it as kik alecha).

Kik is yellow split peas not lentils.

[gfron1]

I've never made injira before and I'm doing a recipe that says 1 lb of teff flour with 3 C. warm water and some yeast. I expected it to be like pancake batter, but its very, very watery. Is this correct? I'm giving it the 24 hour ferment time right now so I can redo if I need to.

[melamed]

I've never made injira before and I'm doing a recipe that says 1 lb of teff flour with 3 C. warm water and some yeast.  I expected it to be like pancake batter, but its very, very watery.  Is this correct?  I'm giving it the 24 hour ferment time right now so I can redo if I need to.

←

I watched an Ethiopian women making ingira and she used 1 cup teff to two cups of water, it should be like pancake batter, otherwise the holes won't form on top. The Yemenite have a similar bread (Lachoch) which is essentially the same as ingira except that wheat flour is used. The technique is the same. When making these breads a nonstick pan is helpful, the batter should be poured in a spiral fashion onto a cold pan, between batches, the pan is cooled upside down under a running faucet. Only one side is cooked until holes form on the top. The teff batter is left to ferment for many hours, I was told that she didn't like her teff very sour so she fermented it only for 24 hours at room temperature and not 3 days like many of her relatives. Even after only a short fermentation time it was a bit hard getting used to the flavour, especially when she dipped my bread in a generous amount of hot sauce at 8 in the morning.

[gfron1]

Thank you. I'll make a second batch this morning - it'll just have a shorter ferment.

[Kim D]

I watched an Ethiopian women making ingira and she used 1 cup teff to two cups of water, it should be like pancake batter, otherwise the holes won't form on top. The Yemenite have a similar bread (Lachoch) which is essentially the same as ingira except that wheat flour is used. The technique is the same. When making these breads a nonstick pan is helpful, the batter should be poured in a spiral fashion onto a cold pan, between batches, the pan is cooled upside down under a running faucet.

I've had my injera batter (teff flour and water, that's it) going for a month or two and it's nice and sour. I decided to try using a cold pan and that did not work for me at all. Has anyone had success with that technique?

When I started out, I made injera in my crepe pan over medium heat. Now that I've gotten more experience, I've been using a mitad at the highest heat. I use a thinner batter and get a better rise. A quart-size mason jar holds the right amount of batter to make four injera.

[Woods]

I need some advice on berebere. I have used it from Zamouri's and it was good but would like to make my own. I would like to be as authentic as possible. Is there an Ethiopian out there who has their mother's recipe that they would share. There are too many with too much variation on the web. Thanks. Woods

[djyee100]

I need some advice on berebere. I have used it from Zamouri's and it was good but would like to make my own. I would like to be as authentic as possible. Is there an Ethiopian out there who has their mother's recipe that they would share. There are too many with too much variation on the web. Thanks. Woods

A recipe for berbere from an article in Saveur magazine. I've never tried it, but it sounds good. The author is Ethiopian.

The article about Ethiopian food in Saveur: http://www.writerati.com/images/images/Ethiopia.pdf

More about the author here: http://www.writerati.com/index.html