A Satisfying Soup

Returning from a long day of skiing there is usually just one thing I want to put in my mouth. My thumb. No, just kidding, I stopped sucking my thumb for comfort many years ago, now I eat instead. And what I most want to eat is a warming soup. Miso is my favorite broth for the base of any soup, but unfortunately, the traditional simple miso soups tend to be a little light to be a whole meal after a long day of skiing, so, raiding my fridge, I came up with this tasty solution. So tasty, in fact, that I ate the leftovers this afternoon, despite the lack of skiing today due to a power outage at Snoqualmie Pass. The edamame and peppers add an extremely satisfying crunch that make this soup a standout and something I will certainly add into my recipe rotation this winter. The jalepeno adds my much loved heat to the dish, and the whole thing is quite healthy.JalepenoOnionGreen PepperGingerGarlicMiso PasteEdamameChopping one clove of garlic and mincing a half teaspoon of ginger, I tossed them in a small pot with a bit of no stick cooking spray. I added about half a small onion, and a quarter of the green pepper, and about a tablespoon of jalepeno, all chopped up. I sauteed these for about 5 minutes, then added about 2 cups of water. As this came to a boil, I broke up and added in about a tablespoon and a half of the miso paste and a few handfuls of edamame (I used frozen, pre-shelled). Once the miso broke up, I took it off the heat and ate it with a few of the turkey dumplings still hanging out in the freezer. 

The Ethiopian Feast: Part 3– Goat meat stew

I tried to make this goat stew in the style of Doro Wat, a very common chicken dish in Ethiopia. I just like goat meat more than chicken.

First off, I marinated about a half pound of goat meat chunks in the juice of one lemon, with a pinch of salt for about half an hour. This is a good time to make one hard boiled egg per person eating. In the meantime, I began cooking one onion, chopped, dry in a pot. Once it had cooked a bit (about 5 minutes) I added four tablespoons of nitter kibe, a pinch of cardamom, two tablespoons of berebere (though adjust to your own spice preference, this was quite spicy, a half teaspoon of salt, about a tablespoon of chopped ginger and four cloves of chopped garlic. I sauteed these till the onions were translucent. At this point I added in a cup of stock and brought the whole thing to a boil. Once boiling, I turned it down to a simmer and added the goat meat, along with the marinade. I let it stew with the lid on for about an hour, though I probably could have kept going for even more tender goat. I then removed the lid and turned the heat up till it was at a rolling boil so that it would reduce. I also added the hard boiled egg back in here, first piercing it all over with a knife so that it absorbed the flavors. After about a half hour, it had reduced down to a stew like texture and was ready to serve.

The Ethiopian Feast Part 2: Eat your Veggies

To go along with our meaty parts of the Ethiopian feast I made two veggie dishes, both of which I have seen on most every Ethiopian menu. The first was a simple salad with a very flavorful dressing. For this, I simply chopped romaine lettuce, white onions, half a jalapeno and a roma tomato and tossed them in a dressing. The dressing was the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic (I said very flavorful!) with salt and pepper.

The greens were a little more complicated. I was hoping to do mustard greens, but the Greenwood Market seemed to not have those, so I chose collard greens instead. Also included in this dish were: half a green pepper (chopped), half an onion (chopped), 2 small thai hot peppers (diced), 2 cloves of garlic (minced), about a teaspoon of chopped ginger, nitter kibe, salt, pepper, cardamom and stock.

I chopped off the stems of the greens and blanched those for a good while. In the mean time I sauteed the green peppers, hot peppers, garlic, ginger and onion in two tablespoons of nitter kibe. I then added the greens’ stems and began blanching the leaves, while I continued to sautee the rest. When the leaves were done blanching, I added them to the sautee pan and poured in about a cup of chicken stock. Seasoned this with salt, pepper and a touch of cardamom. Once this had reduced down (about 15-20 minutes) it was ready to eat.

The Ethiopian Feast Part 1: Kitfo and Cheese

Kitfo, often referred to as Ethiopian steak tartar, is one of my very favorite foods in the world. It was very exciting to try my hand at this very simple dish. The first thing I did was to prepare the cheese that accompanies the meat. Because the meat is so spicy and flavorful, this bland and cooling cheese provides the perfect foil when the two elements are cradled together in a piece of injera.

For cheese: 1 quart of buttermilk (I used low fat, because I do try…), cheese cloth and a bit of quark (or yogurt if you have that already), salt

I poured the buttermilk into a large pan and kept it on low to medium heat for about 25 minutes, then drained it in a cheesecloth, working hard to get all the liquid out. I then placed it under a crate of oranges (though any heavy object will do) for another hour. When I removed it, I wanted a bit of a creamier texture, so I added about a teaspoon of quark, which worked perfectly, then just a dash of salt to bring out the natural flavors. I stuck this in the fridge for the 3 or so hours while I worked on the rest of the dishes, and I actually think the time in the fridge did it a fair amount of good, as it came out of the fridge tasting better than I remembered it going in.

For the kitfo beef, I chose to use a half pound of eye of round. Why eye of round? It was a very cheap, very lean cut. Buying extra lean ground meat would also work well, as would, I’m sure any other lean cut of beef. I chose to hand chop it myself to get the intense texture that comes from hand chopped steak (though B later said he preffered it ground. Oh Well). Then I microwaved (yeah, I’m lazy) 2 tablespoons of nitter kibe (spiced butter, from Zuma, see below) with a heaping teaspoon of berebere. Very important to let it cool after microwaving so that the butter does not cook the meat. Then, as I was serving the meat, I poured the butter/berebere mixture over the meat and mixed it well. Raw beef in all its glory.

The Making of an Ethiopian Feast: Shopping at Zuma

I used to live just down the street from Zuma, but I had never been there. The non-descript store front failed to call me in, and I knew where to get good Ethiopian food, and was just as happy to drive across town for it. But as I prepared to cook my Ethiopian feast, the fact that Zuma claimed to be a grocery store as well as a restaurant turned out to serve me well. I went in just after they opened, around 10:15 in the morning, and found the place empty except for a small child playing with his toys. There were two large fridges, one filled solely with giant ziploc bags of berebere, the Ethiopian spice mixture I had come for. The second was filled with a mish mash of random stuff and soda pop. On the opposite side of the room were shelf after shelf of various kinds of lentils. I picked out my enormous bag of berebere ($ and asked the friendly woman who had come out of the kitchen about nitter kibe, the spiced butter that my recipes called for. She went in to the back and brought me back a small plastic takeout container of it ($5). “Smell it,” she urged me. I did. As I sniffed the wonderful aroma, I knew my Ethiopian food would turn out well. With something this delicious smelling in it, there was no possibility of going wrong. I asked about injera, the lovely pancake like bread I was looking for to eat the food with. “Oh,” she said, looking concerned, “I’m running a little late, it is not ready yet.” Now, when searching for the freshest ingredients for a delicious feast, there are no better words you can here. She told me they would be ready in ten minutes. I walked across the street to the Greenwood Market where I was able to pick up the rest of my ingredients that I would need to make the feast. Upon my return, I was handed a giant plastic sealed bag still steaming with ten beautiful injera ($6). The fresh injera were so good that I devoured the first one totally plain when I got back to my house. The menu looked good, though I didn’t get the chance to try the food, I did notice they had kitfo, my very favorite Ethiopian dish.

 

Here is a photo of the final product. More posts to come with the recipes.

The Ethiopian Feast: A Preview

Okay, shameless plug and ridiculous excuse all at once: Today is a big fundraiser at all CHOW Foods restaurants, so I don’t have much time, but I did make the Ethiopian feast yesterday and it was absolutely AMAZING. I’m putting up the photos now, I will try to get the recipes and reports written up in the next few days.

This is the whole plate: (clockwise from upper left) Salad, Goat Wot, Gomen, lab, kitfo

This is a decent shot that shows the hot red kitfo up against the cooling white cheese

And a close up on the goat wot. Not really a traditional thing, but I took the traditional doro wat and edited it into a goat wat. Because I’m (gasp!) not a huge fan of chicken. And…little known fact, goat is extremely healthy!

Wingmasters: Revisited

Many months ago I wrote about a favorite bar here and here. Due to being a bit more conscious of what I’m eating and no longer living in Ballard, it has been a while since we were there. I had written of the leaving of Todd, THE wingMaster. But last night we went back and things were great. A slimmed down, far less alcoholic looking version of Todd was back in the kitchen. The jerk wings were as spicy and tasty as I remembered and the mozzarella sticks (pictured above) just as huge and melty. The place appears to have been cleaned up (”There isn’t a trough in the bathroom anymore! There is REAL toilet.”–B), and there was a lower ratio of dirty old men drunks to normal people. Overall the place has only improved in my opinion. Little bit more expensive, but still on the cheap end of the spectrum. I’ll definetly be back here again for all my sports watching needs.

Foodie Feeding Frenzy

That’s right, it was a foodie feeding frenzy on tuesday night. Keren over at Savvy Savorer pulled a whole group of us foodie types together and organized an amazing dinner for everyone.

We gathered at Quinn’s on Capitol Hill. The place was crowded and noisy and the crowd was not my scene, but Keren got us a nice little corner table upstairs and things were pleasant. On the floor it looked like there were 7 people crowded around each 2 top smooshed against the next group. It took us an hour to even get to the food because we were all so talkative! I started with a sage margarita from the rather pleasant looking cocktail selection. It was a good margarita (with no added sugar, thank god) but I wasn’t able to get much sage out of it. I switched it up to a nice San Giovese afterwards.

We did a little gift exchange of foodie items, very cool. I ended up with two books from Ronald over at Cornichon. While we waited for the food to arrive, I picked the amazing brain of Jay who writes for Seattlest. As the food arrived we got the opportunity to share our plates and discuss the food. And what a brain. I got restaurant reccomendations for all over the city, up to Vancouver, and I’m pretty sure if I’d been interested I could have got them for the whole world. A fountain of restaurant knowledge. And my newly adopted restaurant advisor! The food arrived, and as much I am anti-vegetarian (send the hate mail right on over, folks!) I rather enjoyed the grilled salad ordered by Michael of Herbivoracious. Moving onto meatier options, I would say that my favorite was the gnocchi and oxtail that was ordered by Candace of Italian Woman at the Table. The gnocchi were a great texture and the oxtail was tender and well flavored. To my other side was Rachel, who is not a blogger, but rather a radio personality with a show called Stick a Fork in it on 710 KIRO and Annie, a former food writer for a myriad of local papers. Our table was rounded out with Katerin, who runs a translation company and is originally from Germany. Being the sole native of Seattle at the table (as I so often am), it was fun to hear the opinions on the Seattle food scene from people who grew up elsewhere. While the scene has changed since I was a kid, it certainly influanced me growing up and constantly eating at Thai restaurants and Chinese places in the ID. Dim Sum as a regular thing and not being afraid of trying new things.

The other dishes we tried at Quinn’s didn’t all please in the same way the oxtail did. I found the wild boar ragu sloppy joe dissapointing other than the spicy flavor imparted from the jalapeno pepper. The seared tuna was delicious, but the dish itself was uninventive. The other innovative dishes I tried (rabbit pate, duck with duck rilette) were all quite good, but none were shout it out amazing. I enjoyed everything I ate and would certainly return, though I think it will be after the heavy buzz dies down. The one thing I found inedible were there french fries, but why go to a place like that and order fries anyways?

Last but not least, Keren got a ton of companies to donate amazing goodies to us. I haven’t tried the yogurt or chips that we got, but I put some bacon salt on my poached eggs yesterday morning. WOW. That was amazing.

Berebere Delicious Pasta Sauce

First of all: I don’t like marinara. There, I said it. No, I don’t like red sauce, and yes, that means on pizza, lasagna and pasta. Not even on my mozzarella sticks. A cardinal sin of foodie-ness? I’m okay with it. Just a little background on my quest for an alternative pasta sauce. And yes, I do love tomatoes.

A little while ago we were out for a fantastic Ethiopian meal, and when they gave us our doggy bag, they gave us some berebere, the spice mixture, to go with. I’ve been wanting to use it for something for a while and hadn’t found the right use, but when I spotted a friendly red bell pepper in our fridge, on the cusp of going bad, I suddenly knew. I roasted the red pepper under the broiler for about 15 minutes, so I could pull the skin off easily, then peeled it off and chopped the pepper pretty small. I sauteed some onions and garlic in a bit of non-stick cooking spray, then added about a quarter cup of chicken stock. At this point, my kitchen smelled pretty heavenly. I put the pasta on to cook. Threw the pepper bits into the stock, a long with about a tablespoon of berebere, but you can adjust that for your spice level. This was quite spicy. I let the sauce boil nd reduce til the peppers were only just barely still a seperate entity from the sauce, then tore up some basil leaves. This is the stage in the picture above. Poured the pasta in to this sauce, gave it a few sautee shakes, and voila, easy berebere pasta for one.

Lessons from a Chinese Roommate Part 2: Whole Steamed Fish

I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater so I was okay with it when one of the restaurants I worked in started serving whole sardines, head and all. As I watched the waiters get squemish, I was a little bummed that these staff of a seafood restaurant would be so scared of a fish head. It brought me back to my first whole fish experience, watching Tracey steam up whole trout in our kitchen, then excitedly pluck out the eyeballs.

So I mosied down to my local Whole Foods and picked up a nice whole trout. It was cleaned already, which was nice, since I have no idea how one cleans a fish. To be honest, a trout will have plenty of flavor with just a bit of lemon stuck in it, but I took this to the next step, throwing in some of the green chili paste I got at the Indian shop last week, as well as some lemon. I gave it a quick sear in a hot oiled pan, then I situated the whole thing on a plate atop some of the fresh swiss chard from the garden. Put the whole thing (plate and all) on a steam rack in a pan and steamed it for about ten minutes, flipped it and about 5 more. The fish came out perfectly. in each bite you got the soft fish flesh, a hint of bright lemon and then the bite of the hot chile paste. We tore through one side, though B refused an eyeball or a cheek (tiny on the trout, yet still delicious!).

 This is about as simple as a meal can get, yet it was so tasty and so fresh. Reminds you that cooking is not all stressing and mixing. Sometimes its just putting the right thing in to the pan. And not being squemish about fish heads.