Month: June 2010

I love cooking, I love it more now than I ever thought I would. Yes there are nights I don’t want to cook dinner, but once I start the process my mood usually improves. I had never had Ethiopian food before we decided to adopt from Ethiopia. I quickly found out I love it. It is now tied with Mexican as my favorite food. I had put off learning to cook Ethiopian food for far too long. I had built it up in my head as an impossible task, yes injera is not so simple and I need work in that area, but other than that it is like cooking any other food, just different spices.

I am so glad I finally started trying to cook the food. The other night I made two dishes one was bland and I probably won’t ever make it again, just wasn’t really my taste, and the other was SUPER spicy. Like so spicy I was sweating from every pore in my body, but it was also very, very YUMMY. Matt went back for seconds even though he is not a SUPER spicy food eater. The next night I made another half recipe without the berbere so I could combine what was left from the first night with it. The result was the perfect amount of spice for us.

Yemisir Kik We’t

Ingredients:

2 cups split lentils (there are 4 cups in the picture, I was making two different recipes with lentils)
6 cups water (boiled)

2 cups red onions (chopped)
1.5 cups oil (I later learned this was a spiced oil that I should have made ahead of time, I just used olive)
1 Tbsp. ginger
1 tsp. garlic (I just used a clove)
1 cup berbere (I thought I was smart and only used 3/4, haha still too spicy)
1/4 tsp. cumin

The ingredients for both of my dishes

Preparation
Wash lentils and boil for 5 minutes (until the lentils are tender). Cook onions adding oil and stirring gently until golden brown adding a little water as needed (I didn’t see a need with all that oil!) to prevent sticking. Remove lentils from heat, drain and reserve water for later use. Add the lentils to the onions. Add reserved water stirring to prevent mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pan. (the second night I was lazy and skipped draining the lentils and just added it all at once) Add everything else. Simmer for 20 minutes. 6 or more servings.

Helpers being silly


Uh-oh the helpers are done!

Noah on the second night decided he was just join in on the fine, he was so mad when I wouldn’t let him stick his spoon in my pot.

Utensils:

large pancake pan or large frying pan

large pot

deep mixing bowl

Ingredients:

1.5 pounds teff flour

6 cups of water

2 pkt. yeast

Preparation:

Clean teff thoroughly by removing all foreign materials , grind to a fine powder (mine was flour already, so I skipped.)  Sift into a deep mixing bowl.  Adding water gradually and rubbing with the fingers to avoid lumps, make the flour into a dough.

In a large pot dissolve yeast in warm water and add the flour mixture and mix.  Leave covered for 2-3 days until fermentation begins and water rises to the top.  (I waited until the whole top layer was water, only took 2 days)  Carefully discard the water.  Boil 2 cups of water.  Take 1 cup of the mixture, put in the boiling water (Abseet’).  Place on a warm stove and stir continuously until it becomes thick (maybe 5 minutes).  Cool and pour back into the original pot.  Add more water (??? how much, I had no clue so I added a little at a time until it became more like runny pancake batter), cover and let stand till the mixture rises (doesn’t ‘rise’ like you expect bread dough to rise, mine just started to get all bubbly again).

Preheat pancake pan at 420° (I borrowed my neighbor’s electric skillet, and we ended up folding it closed and heating from both sides).  Take 3/4 of the mixture and pour into the pan slowly, starting at the edge, going clockwise, in circles and coming to the center.  Cover pan 2-4 minutes.  When ready, the rim of the injera will rise from the pan.  Remove immediately and place on a clean cloth to cool.  Injera can be covered and stored in a cool place or refrigerated for about 2-3 days.  Makes 6-8 servings.

From Exotic Ethiopian Cooking.