"Wats" for Dinner?! Ethiopian Food!



by Jenny

 

Ethiopia~Foodie Friday

 

Selem

(seh-LAHM) means hello in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. But many other languages are spoken there as well. That's just one of many things we learned this week!

 

When Gregg picked Ethiopia for this week, I had no idea about much of their country, let alone their food. In fact, Gregg and I embarrassingly thought Ethiopia was mostly dry and desert. It is very dry on the eastern side of the country but also is quite mountainous! They have quite a few 13-15,000 feet ranges! The other thing we found interesting is that 44% of the population are Orthodox Christian Church, 40% are Muslim, and 10% are Protestant. Back to the food...

 

Ethiopian Menu

Doro Wat

similar to stew; chicken with spices such as garam masala and fenugreek

Mesir Wat

red lentil stew with spices garam masala, turmeric, and tons of ginger

Ye'abesha Gomen

Ethiopian collard greens with ginger and green chilis

Ayib

creamy soft cheese, we made with cottage cheese and greek yogurt

Injera

a spongy sourdough flatbread, typically uses teff flour and ferments for 3 days, we used a quick recipe with buckwheat flour, baking soda, club soda, & vinegar

Dabo Kolo

spicy, crunchy snack made with cayenne pepper

 

We started the Doro Wat in the crockpot first thing in the morning and the smells were A-Mazing....the spices are things we don't normally cook with and creating a strong, sweet aroma. After the six hours, Gabe used the potato masher to shred the chicken and mash everything a bit.

 

The Dabo Kolo is a typically a snack and are quite addicting. You think they're plain little crunchy, slightly doughy on the inside then a kick of cayenne hits. You just want more. We cooked those next and they were fun to make too. They reminded us of feffernusse we made when we did Germany.

 

Gregg and Evie made the Ayib because it's not a cheese we can find here. They rinsed off cottage cheese and stirred it in greek yogurt with lime juice and we used it to top the Mesir Wat, like a sour cream. Yummy!

 

Gwyn and I had the job of making the Injera. It's a very bubbly spongy flatbread that Ethiopians use instead of utensils. They just rip off pieces and use it to pick up the stews. The batch gave us about 40 pieces! In a medium skillet, you scoop batter and spread it as thin as possible to stretch out to 6-8 inches. There was definitely an art to it and Gwyn and I got quite good at them after about the tenth one!

 

Next was the Mesir Wat, the red lentil stew that also has some amazing spices plus tomato paste, & garlic. Gregg started the collard greens last.

 

We found a great blog A Spicy Perspective  where she's done all the work to create Ethiopian recipes with ingredients we can find and she quickened the Injera recipe from three days of fermenting to like 10 minutes! We still wanted all the spices we could get our hands on- thank goodness for our local and totally awesome Mama Jean's market where we could buy the just the amount we needed of garam masala and fenegreek. I think I'm in love with those spices- man, they smell good!!

Here's her recipes for Doro Wat and Injera, and Mesir Wat and Ayib. Here's the recipe for Abesha Gomen.

 

Here's the recipe for Dabo Kolo:

In a 1-quart bowl:
Mix: 2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 cup oil
Knead together and add WATER, spoonful by spoonful, to form a stiff dough. Knead dough for 5 minutes longer.

Tear off a piece the size of a golf ball.
Roll it out with palms of hands on a lightly floured board into a long strip 1/2 inch thick.
Snip into 1/2-inch pieces with scissors.
Spread about a handful of the pieces on an ungreased 9-inch frying pan (or enough to cover bottom of pan). Cook over heat until uniformly light brown on all sides, stirring up once in a while as you go along.
Continue until all are light brown.

 

Ethiopian cuisine is family style eating with everyone eating from the stews and using the Injera to pick up their food. We had fun experiencing Ethiopian food what better way to teach Geography?! Homeschooling at it's best....love it! :)