Food Friday: Yemiser Selatta (Lentil Salad)

Ingredients

• 250g dried lentils (you could also used canned lentils, drained and rinsed)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1–2 hot chilli peppers, seeded and minced (jalapeño or other)
• 45ml red wine vinegar (3 T)
• 45ml olive oil (3 T)
• 1 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Put lentils in a pot and cover with plenty of water. Cook until soft but not mushy (about 20-30 minutes).
2. While lentils are cooking chop the garlic and chilli pepper. Place in a bowl with remaining ingredients.
3. When lentils are done, drain and rinse well. Add to the bowl with the other ingredients. Toss well. Let stand for at least half an hour for flavours to blend before serving.

Food Friday: Ethiopian Chickpea Wat

Ingredients

• 1 large red onion, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, finely chopped (or coarsely grated)
• 1 potato, peeled and chopped
• ½ – 1 tsp berbere (or cayenne)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2cm fresh ginger, peeled and minced (or 1 tsp)
• ¼ tsp cumin
• ¼ tsp ground cardamom
• ½ tsp each salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 T nit'r qibe (spiced butter) or olive oil
• 1 T tomato paste
• 1c canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 375ml water (1½c)
• 1c frozen peas, thawed

Directions

1. Add the chopped onion to a heavy saucepan with a few tablespoons of the water. Cook on medium until soft (about 5 min), stirring often to be sure it doesn’t burn.
2. Add carrot and potato and a bit more water, cover and cook another 10 minutes.
3. Add spices, nit'r qibe, tomato paste, chickpeas, and remaining water, cover and bring to a boil.
4. educe heat and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender and flavourful, about 30 minutes. You may need to add a bit more water.
5. Add green peas and heat through.
6. Serve on injera with your favourite Ethiopian foods.

Ye’atakilt kilkil is a similar dish made using green beans instead of chickpeas and green peas.

Food Friday: Ethiopian Beet & Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 60ml lemon juice (4T or ¼ c)
• 1 small or ½ medium red onion, finely chopped
• 1–2 hot chilli peppers (jalapeño or other), seeded and minced
• 45ml vegetable oil (3T)
• 4 medium-sized beets, washed
• 4 medium-sized potatoes, scrubbed, skins on

Directions

1. Combine lemon juice, chopped red onion, jalapeño and vegetable oil in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Cook beets and potatoes in separate pots until soft. (Appx 20 minutes for potatoes, appx 30–40 minutes for beets.) (You need separate pots or your potatoes will turn bright pink!)
3. Remove vegetables from heat. Peel beets but leave the skins on the potatoes. Cut into bite-sized pieces.
4. Add vegetables to lemon juice mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Stir.
5. Serve hot or at room temperature (but not cold or the flavours will be dulled). Enjoy!

(By the way, Justice, I found an internet site with tons of beet recipes if you’re running out of ideas!)

Food Friday – Gomen

(For the next four Fridays, leading up to Button’s one-year anniversary as part of our family, I will be featuring Ethiopian dishes. Since Button prefers mostly vegetarian dishes, they will be vegetarian recipes.)

This is a very simple Ethiopian dish that we enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3cm fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 250-500ml water (1-2c)
• ¼ c nit'er qibe (spiced butter) or olive oil
• 1 small or ½ large head of cabbage, or equivalent collard greens or kale, chopped into bite-size pieces
• 1–3 hot chilli peppers (red or green), seeded and minced (to taste)

Directions

1. Put onion, garlic, and ginger into in a heavy saucepan with about 250ml water. Cook until onion is soft.
2. Add remaining ingredients and cook, covered, until the cabbage is very soft.
3. Serve on injera with your other favourite Ethiopian foods.

Things Ethiopian (2007-10-15)

(Originally posted on 15 October 2007.)

One of my Saturday errands was to find a source of teff flour, since I’m trying my hand at making injera. I found a recipe with detailed instructions on the Ethiopia Adoption Blog and have spent the past week preparing the starter. Mary uses wheat flour for the starter, and adds teff flour only when preparing to cook the actual injera (which ends up converting your wheat starter to teff starter) so I wasn’t in a huge rush initially. But the time to move on to phase 2 is approaching, so I needed to find some teff*!

Seeing as there are at least four Ethiopian restaurants in town, I figured there had to be a local source, the question was just how to find it. First stop was a store downtown that I know carries many different kinds of ingredients for African, Caribbean and Chinese cooking. Giggles and I made that our first stop of our Saturday errands and looked up and down every aisle. I found corn flour, garbanzo flour, rice flour, fufu flour, and countless other things, but no teff.

On the other hand, we discovered that the store’s upper floor carries a wide variety of hair care products for African hair, so I now know where to find what I’ll need in that department. Though seeing as I’m having an African son, I doubt our needs will be as extensive as if he were a girl!

Okay, where next? I recalled seeing a store near the market that billed itself as carrying ingredients for African and Middle Eastern cuisine, so headed there next. Found a parking spot right in front of an Ethiopian restaurant and walked the short distance to the store, but a sign on the door said it was closed, “back at 3:00.”

It was only 12:45, and Giggles’ art class was due to start in 45 minutes, so we needed a bite to eat. Obvious choice: the Ethiopian restaurant. While dining, I asked the waitress where they got the teff flour for their injera, and she pointed me to a store at the southeast extreme of downtown (well, not really downtown per se, but close…). So after taking Giggles to art class, I headed over and found what I was seeking right inside the front door, in 10-kg sacks. Unsure I wanted to start with such a large quantity, I looked around and found smaller amounts in plastic bags.

So now I’ve got all I need to make injera – barring a large enough frying pan to cook them to the proportions usually observed in Ethiopia or restaurants here. But that will have to wait for another shopping trip. For now we’ll stick to regular frying pan size.

*Actually, one can use other flours to make injera, such as barley, rice, corn, or millet, but teff is the most “authentic” and from what I’ve read, most injera contains at least some teff.