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.

Dahlak

I remember as a child, we used to go for Ethiopian food a fair amount. Mostly this sticks in my head because it was the only time we were not yelled at for eating with our fingers (which I’m pretty sure we did, regardless of cuisine). So when my roommate demanded I try this Eritrean place, I embraced the opportunity to use the one utensil that makes all food taste better–the hands.

Despite being hidden behind the Oh Boy Oberto factory store on Ranier, we found the little hideaway fairly easily and were seated immediatley in the small room. A full bar was stocked behind us and the TV was showing Eritrean television (which included Soccer and pasta-making, as I recall).

We ordered a vegetarian platter and Kitfo. The vegetarian platter was similar to what I remember from previous East African food experiences, only larger. I huge platter made of Injera, the spongy buckwheat bread, was dotted with a variety of vegetable preperation, often stew like and involving lentils. Now, I have to say, my biggest pet peeve is when people tell me they don’t like Ethiopian food because they don’t like Injera. Now, I know if you eat Injera on its own it is very bitter and dry and no good at all. But it has NO flavor when you wrap it around lentil mixes and veggies. It is simply a great tool for eating the stews as well as becoming a soft, yummy texture with the moisture. So don’t try that complaint on me, people. Every dish on the veggie platter was rich and delicious. Unlike other places, I never started avoiding certain spots. By the end, all that was left of the injera platter was little dots of color indicating the type of dish that had been there.

The Kitfo, which my roommate ordered for us may be the closest food has ever come to sex for me. It is raw ground beef with hot butter and berebere (a spicy spice mix) poured over it. It is served with a soft, buttery, whipped cheese. So you use your injera to pick up some meat, dab some cheese on top and eat. It is a lovely squishy, rare steak texture to it, while the heat of the berebere is set off by the coolness of the cheese. Sublime.

The service was in general very good. They checked back with us often, making sure that we had enough injera. At the end, it took a while to get our check, but that was because our waitress was very involved with a coffee ceremony, which is an extremely complex procedure involving incense on the table and a lot of ritual. She was forgiven, as we were fascinated to watch this.