Ethiopian Cookbook
A Beginner’s Guide
This year’s cuisine weeks are half way over, but still going strong! This month’s theme was Ethiopian, a cuisine I’ve never even tried until now, and that turned out pretty tasty. A lot of the dishes are hearty and very stew-like. Many of these stews are supposed to be served on a flatbread called injera, however this bread requires teff flour which I couldn’t find locally, so I enjoyed them on their own.
Ethiopian flavors: cayenne, ginger, cumin, turmeric, and cardamom.
Dinner No. 1: Yeshiro Wat
Spicy Chickpea Stew
This chickpea stew was very similar to other chickpea dishes I’ve made. Pretty basic all said and done, but good. It wasn’t very spicy, which was a little disappointing. Not the strongest start to Ethiopian week.
Rating: 3/5
Dinner No. 2: Saga Alicha and Solanum Tubersum
Beef Stew and Mashed Potatoes
The mashed potatoes in this meal were my favorite part – a combination of sweet and white potatoes, corn, coconut milk, curry and turmeric. The beef was spiced pretty well and cooked in a sauce until the sauce was completely absorbed, so it was rather tender as well. A small step up from the chickpea stew of Day 1.
Rating: 3.5/5
Dinner No. 3: Yemiser
Lentil Soup
This was when things started getting really good. The flavors of this stew were rich and delicious – probably due to the addition of niter kibbeh, a clarified butter spiced with onions, garlic, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, and turmeric. The butter turned out really well and I can’t wait to use it on everything from pancakes to stir-fries.
Rating: 4/5
Dinner No. 4: Doro & Quia
Hot and Spicy Chicken Wraps and Tomato Cucumber Salad
Epic. “Restaurant quality.” So good.
Just a few comments regarding these outrageously awesome chicken wraps. Slow cooked chicken thighs with onions, garlic, ginger, spices, stock, red wine, and tomato paste. Homemade kita bread pulled it all together. I will SO be making this again!
Oh, and the tomato cucumber salad was pretty good, too. Pretty standard.
Rating: 5/5
Dinner No. 5: Sambusa & Tikil Gomen
Fried Lamb Turnovers & Hot Cabbage Salad
These little lamb turnovers were fun to make and rather tasty, too. They were flavored with cinnamon an cayenne – a nice mix of sweet and spicy. The hot cabbage salad was also really good – hearty vegetables spiced with cumin and turmeric.
Rating: 4.5/5
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So Ethiopian week ended up working out pretty well! I’ll definitely be making the chicken wraps again, and probably some of the sides – like the mashed potatoes and cabbage salad.
July’s cuisine week is Greek! It should be a fun one – and it will be the first cuisine week in our new house! Hopefully we’ll be all unpacked by then! ;)
- Vietnamese – DONE!
- French – DONE!
- Irish – DONE!
- Indian – DONE!
- Jamaican – DONE!
- Ethiopian – DONE!
- Greek – NEXT!
- Cuban
- Moroccan
- Thai
- Polish
- Japanese