Gete's perfect tikil gomen recipe

When I first moved to Ethiopia, I lived with a host family for about 3 months. That's where my host mom, Gete, taught me to make tikil gomen. It was so odd to her that any man wanted to learn how to cook that she was actually nervous to have me around when she prepared injeera or firfir. But eventually we got to be great kitchen pals and I had a blast as her sous chef who could speak only about 8 words of Amharic. Anyhow, this is exactly how she makes her tikil gomen, which is just mild, sautéed cabbage (tikil gomen literally is just 'cabbage' in Amharic). It's a nice, lighter and milder option to serve with the more flavorful wots (stews) for a meal. It can be served hot or cold.

Gete's backyard kitchen. It's humble, but it gets the job done.

Inside the kitchen/pantry (you can just see the edge of the wood stove on the left). This is where I learned how to make the best dishes Ethiopia has to offer from the one and only Gete!

My host fam!

Prep time: 1 cocktail

4 TBSP oil

1 onion, chopped

4 carrots, sliced on the diagonal into 1/2-inch ovals

1/2 head cabbage, core removed and sliced into 3/4-1 inch strips

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp tumeric

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalepeno, chopped

In a large pan that has a lid, heat the oil on medium. When hot, add onions and cover. Let the onions cook for 5 minutes, removing the lid once to stir.

Add carrots, and keep the pot covered for 5 more minutes, opening it once again halfway through to stir.

Add cabbage and keep covered another 5 minutes, opening once again halfway through to stir.

Add salt, ginger, tumeric, garlic, and jalepeno. Cover it all up again and cook until cabbage has softened fully and the moisture in the bottom of the pan has all cooked off, about 15-20 minutes, removing the lid only about every 3 minutes or so to stir. Viola! Gete's tikil gomen is ready!

Nashif: An Ethiopian Breakfast (Kind Of)

After living in Ethiopia for two years, I saw this food only twice--at two restaurants on opposite sides of the country. I never saw anybody eating it at home, nor have I seen or heard of it anywhere else, including online. So I have no clue whether this is a legitimately common food someplace, or if a couple random restaurant owners are the only ones who offer it as a way to offload old bread. One thing I am sure of, however, is that this is a freaking amazingly delicious breakfast. It's kind of a stove-top savory bread pudding. And it will completely cure any hangover. Think of it as the African equivalent of chilaquiles. And there's really no reason this needs to be a breakfast food; you can really serve it for any meal.

Prep time: 2 cups of coffee

6 slices sandwich bread, left out overnight (preferably whole wheat)

1 small onion, minced finely, divided

3 TBSP butter

4 cloves garlic

3/4 tsp salt

2 jalepenos or fresno chilies, minced

1 TBSP berbere

1 cup water

2 eggs, beaten

Plain yogurt, lowfat or full-fat only (no nonfat)

A handful of chopped tomato

Cut the dry bread into 1-inch cubes and set aside.

Put a dry saucepan over medium heat and add all but a handful of the onions. Stir the onions frequently until they become fairly translucent, about 5 minutes. Add butter and stir until it's melted, then add garlic, salt, and chilies. Saute for another 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently. Now add the berbere and saute another couple minutes. Next add the water and stir in the bread. Stir really well until the bread is nice and evenly coated with the spices and all the water is absorbed. You want the bread to soften up, but not be totally mushy; it should still have a bit of texture to it, so add a bit more water if necessary and salt to taste.

Remove the bread mixture from heat and cover. On the same burner increase to medium-high and heat a bit of butter or oil in a frying pan and scramble the eggs.

Now dish it up by scooping the bread mixture onto two plates and topping with the remaining onion, eggs, tomato, and a few generous dollops of yogurt. Shit, that's good!

Habesha Gomen

Ethiopian habesha gomen is basically like any other sauteed greens. If you want to make them a little more Ethiopian, you can always add a sprinkle of berbere, even though I never really saw it done in Ethiopia.

If you've got other greens—such as spinach, kale, chard, or mustard greens—you can also use those for this recipe, but cooking times will vary, depending the toughness of your greens.

Prep time: 1/4 cocktail

1.5 TBSP oil
¼ cup minced onion
4 cloves minced garlic
2 hot chilies, chopped finely (optional)
1 bunch of leafy greens (such as kale or chard), spine removed and chopped pretty well
1.5 TBSP soy sauce
Ground black pepper to taste

In frying pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Add greens and sauté for 90 seconds, stirring frequently.

Add soy sauce, black pepper, and a couple tablespoons of water. Reduce heat to medium and stir occasionally until greens reach desired, about 5 minutes. Add additional splashes of water if it cooks off completely.

Serve hot.

Shiro Tagabino!!!

Living in Ethiopia, this became my favorite meal. Filling, easy, delicious, and fast. Total comfort food.

Real tagabino is only found in the north. Elsewhere in Ethiopia, when you order tagabino, you get flavorless, watery glop that basically amounts to an 8-birr plate of disappointment.  But the true northern-style tagabino is pretty damn amazing. It's great as a standalone dish or served alongside any other Ethiopian dishes--such as mesir wot, quanta firfir, doro wot, gomen, or whatever else you like.

You can get stuff like shiro powder and teff for your injera online or at any big-city Ethiopian grocer. Note that shiro--a spiced chickpea powder--can vary in the amount of berbere that's added to it when it's produced. It can vary in color from white (no spice added) to deep orange (already very spicy). So you'll want to adjust your berbere and salt as you go. 

Prep time: 1/2 cocktail

2 onions, chopped

1/2 cup shiro powder
1/2 cup neutral oil like canola or avacado
1 cup water
1-2 tomatoes, finely chopped (optional)

1 tsp berbere (optional, depending on how seasoned your shiro powder already is)

Salt to taste (shiro powders vary in the amount of added salt, I find I usually have to add about 1.5 tsp to most)

Thinly sliced raw garlic slivers and jalepenos as a topping (optional)

Injera 

Put onions in a food processor and pulse until they are a really finely chopped and just beginning to release some water--but not a total slurry. This is probably about 15 pulses. Make sure you scrape down the edges with a rubber spatula every few pulses.

Heat a saucepan over medium heat and transfer the onion to the dry, heated pan. Dry cook the onions until all the excess moisture has cooked off and they're slightly golden-brown, about 10-20 minutes, stiffing frequently. Add oil, shiro, water, tomatoes and stir it all in together. Then add berbere and salt to taste.

Remove from heat and serve with garlic and jalepeno slivers on top of injera!

Quanta Firfir

After being a vegetarian blog for 2 1/2 years, this is the first-ever meat recipe.

Why? Because no single food is more uniquely, awesomely, authentically Ethiopian than quanta firfir. Not only that, but it's really uncommon here--even among Ethiopian restaurants.

When I first moved to Ethiopia, I hated this dish. Injera topped with injera, I used to call it. My logic was that it was like having a burrito stuffed with old tortilla bits. But as the months passed, I came to to love this big, scrappy mess of a meal. I eventually found myself manically craving quanta firfir when I was forced the indignity of going a couple days without. This dish, usually eaten at breakfast, is a particularly potent hangover cure.

Note that we're not fucking around here. This meal isn't for amateurs. It's easy to make, but you need to plan ahead, and you have to love, love, LOVE injera.

Before you can even make this recipe, you need to have some old injera on hand. Take that injera and tear it into bite-size pieces (roughly 1-2 inch squares). Set it all out on a cooling rack or some other place where it can dry completely. You'll also need to make a batch of the stuff fresh for this meal. It's a lot of legwork, but you can also pick the stuff up easily enough if you live near an Ethiopian restaurant or grocer. (Tell the proprietor you're making quanta firfir and you'll probably get invited to their house for the next holiday. Like I said, this isn't amateur shit.)

Prep time: 1 cup of coffee, preferably Ethiopian Yirgachefe

2 medium onions, chopped
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic
2 TBSP berbere
2 cups water
2-3 ounces beef jerky, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces (use only plain jerky; not anything flavored, like teriyaki)
1 tsp salt
3 big handfuls fully-dried injera that has been torn up into bite-size pieces
A couple hard-boiled eggs, peeled (optional)
Fresh injera for serving

Heat a dry saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and sweat them, without any oil, until they become translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add oil and saute another couple minutes. Add half the garlic and saute yet another couple minutes.

Add berbere and continue to saute. The mixture will start to stick. When it does, add a couple TBSP of the water. Repeat this process until you only have 3/4 of a cup of water left. Then add the water, the rest of the garlic, beef jerky, and salt and immediately remove the pan from the heat and let rest for 60 seconds.

Now stir in the injera chips VERY GENTLY, so as not to break them. Continue to stir gently until all the liquid is absorbed. The injera should be pretty spongy, so if it isn't, stir in a bit more water.

Serve with the eggs on top and, well, more injera (fresh injera this time). 

Truly Authentic Mesir Wot

A few years ago, I posted a really great mesir wot recipe. But after I spent the last couple years living in Ethiopia, I realized that while awesome, the recipe wasn't quite authentic. With the help of my good Ethiopian friend Ruti, I came up with this recipe that is more full-flavored and dead-on authentic. It's identical to the mesir wot I used to order at the little food shack across from my house.

Note—it’s important to NOT use a non-stick pan for this. The recipe involves scalding the lentils to the pot bottom and using a Teflon-coated pot will ruin the coating and ensure that you end up with a lot of Teflon flakes in your dinner. Use cast-iron, ceramic-lined, or a plain metal pot, like all old Ethiopian women do.

Prep time: 3 cocktails

4 TBSP oil
2 medium onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red lentils
½ tsp ground cardamom
3 TBSP berbere
1 tsp salt or to taste
A pinch or two of sugar (optional)

Heat your large non-nonstick sauce pan, over medium to med-high heat with just the onions in it; no oil yet. (The idea is to sweat some of the moisture out before adding the oil and other ingredients.) Stir the onions almost constantly while doing this. Sweat them for several minutes, not allowing them to stick to the bottom, until they've become translucent. Add oil and sauté a few more minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic, sauté a few additional minutes.

Now add the cardamom and berbere, as well as a couple tablespoons water. Reduce your heat a notch and stir very frequently for about 10 minutes, adding an additional splash of water if necessary to avoid sticking.

Add ¼ cup of water and lentils. Sauté, stirring with a metal spatula almost constantly, until water is absorbed. Continue adding water about ¼ cup at a time. The idea is that you want the lentils to scorch to the bottom a bit each time but not burn. You then scrape the caramelized lentil gunk into the rest of the wot to give it a sweet, nutty flavor. Continue doing this until the lentils are fully cooked. Then top off with enough water to give it a nice, wot consistency. Adjust seasoning an add salt and a bit of sugar, if necessary.

Serve with injera and other delicious Ethiopian vittles.

Awaze

Awaze is a marinade made by combining berbere, oil, and water or an Ethiopian honey wine called Tej. Tej is tough to get a hold of in the states, so using white wine is the best options here. In addition to berbere and wine, additions can include olive oil, garlic, onion, and additional hot dried peppers. Awaze can be used both as a marinade for meat or vegetables in a dish called shakala tibs, as well as a general side condiment.

¼ cup white wine
3 TBSP berbere (click here for recipe)
3 TBSP canola oil
2 small cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp grated ginger
1 tsp lemon juice (optional)
½ tsp Cayenne (optional)
1 TBSP honey (optional)
Salt to taste

Whisk well and chill if not using right away.

Mesir Wot

**Update: check out my new authentic mesir wot recipe. While the new recipe is more authentic, this one is is just as good with it's brighter, lighter flavor. Take your pick!**

Mesir Wot is proof that vegan food can kick some serious ass if you know what you're doing. These spiced lentils are a vegetarian staple in Ethiopia. So good! Serve with injera and other radical Ethiopian goodies.

Prep time: 1 cocktail

1 cup red lentils
1/3 cup canola oil
1 medium onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tomatoes, chopped
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tsp berbere (click here for recipe)
¾ tsp salt
a few pinches of chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Injera (click here for recipe)

Combine the lentils with 2 cups of water. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer, cover and cook until all the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a saucepan pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, sauté until onion becomes a bit transparent. Stir in lentils and all remaining ingredients. Bring to boil. If it’s too soupy, simmer, stirring frequently until you reach desired consistency. Serve hot with injeera.

Operation: Delicious Injera

This recipe took me years to get right. I have never found a cookbook or blog that had a suitable injera recipe. And it took me a long time to perfect the ratios and timing in this recipe. But the endeavor worked: this is the best injera you'll have outside of Africa. Guaranteed.

So what the fuck is injera? It is the traditional crepe-like sourdough Ethiopian flatbread that is served with virtually every meal in that country. It is indispensable in all of my Ethiopian recipes, as well as some from other regions. At meal time, a large piece of injeera is placed on a plate and all the food is ladled on top of it. Additional injeera is served on the side with which diners scoop up their food. Eating utensils are never used; just use your hands!

This recipe calls for teff flour. Teff is an outrageously nutritious Ethiopian grain that can be tough to find. Big natural food stores occasionally sell ground teff and you can order it online. Ethiopian or African markets also often have it. Also, when at the store, make sure you’re buying ground teff. Teff is the smallest grain in the world, so ground and unground look identical. Always double check to confirm the label says “ground” or “flour.”

Note that this is essentially a sourdough recipe and requires you to let the teff and water ferment for three days before preparation.

3/4 cup ground teff flour
2 3/4 cups water, divided
1.25 cups unbleached white flour
Pinch of salt
Vegetable oil


Mix ground teff with 2 cups of the water and let stand in a bowl covered with a dish towel at room temperature until it bubbles and has turned sour. This will take about 3 days. The fermenting mixture should be the consistency of a thin pancake batter. And if a bit of mold forms on top, don't worry. Just scoop it off and proceed.

After the teff has fermented, whisk in the salt, white flour, and remaining 3/4 cup water.

Heat a 12-inch or larger skillet (or use a dry non-stick pan) over medium heat and brush a light layer of oil, or, more ideally, spray with a shot of cooking spray. Then proceed as you would with a normal pancake or crepe: Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the hot skillet. About 1/2 cup will make a thin pancake covering the surface of a 12-inch skillet if you spread the batter around immediately by turning and rotating the skillet in the air. The bigger the pan you use, the better. So if you have something larger, use it. Obviously, you’ll scale the amount of batter up or down, depending on skillet size.

Injeera should be thicker than a crêpe, but not as thick as a traditional pancake.

Cook until holes form in the injeera, the top is dry and the edges begin to separate from the pan (about two minutes). Don’t let it turn too brown, and don't flip it over; it is only supposed to be cooked on one side.

Remove from pan by simply sliding or flipping it out onto a cooling rack (using a spatula is not recommended, because the hot injeera often cracks and breaks when you use a spatula) and let cool to room temperature. Once cool, layer wax paper or foil between successive pieces so they don't stick together.

Re-brush pan with oil, if necessary, between injeeras.

Serve at room temperature.

Berbere

Berbere is a spice mixture that is the essential backbone of a huge number of Ethiopian and East African dishes. Hunting down one or two of the spices might be a bit tricky (go online or to an African market if you can’t find them), but once you round everything up, you’ll be happy you did.

Also, berbere requires either an electric spice grinder/coffee grinder or a mortar and pestle. Once again, you’ll have to spend a few bucks if you don’t already have these items, but you’ll be very glad you did. Pre-ground spices just make an inferior product.

This recipe also calls for cinnamon chips, not ground cinnamon or cinnamon sticks. You can find them at a lot of gourmet or natural food stores. If not, just chop an equivalent amount of cinnamon stick.

The ground chili powder in this recipe is special. Don’t use common Mexican-style chili powder found in the grocery store, also don’t use something like chipotle; both have the wrong flavor. Instead choose dried serranos, anchos (though these are mild, so you’ll want to add some more cayenne), or another chili type or combination that doesn’t taste too much like Texas-style chili.

½ tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1/3 tsp cinnamon chips
¼ tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
1/8 tsp whole mustard seeds
½ cup paprika (that’s right, ½ cup!)
1/3 cup ground chili powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp ginger powder
1 TBSP cayenne
2 TBSP salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Combine all the whole spices (first 7 ingredients) in a small bowl and mix well. Over medium-low to medium heat, warm a dry frying pan up. When the pan is totally warmed, add the whole spices. Dry fry the spices, stirring constantly, until they’re nicely toasted but not burned, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Grind finely. Add in all remaining ingredients and stir well. If you like your food to take on a smokier flavor, you can dry fry the finished product a few more minutes. But I like it just as it is. Berbere will keep in a dark, cool, dry place for a number of months.

Zigni Style Spaghetti

The Italians tried their damnedest to colonize Ethiopia and Eritrea in the 1930s. In the end, the Ethiopians repelled the Italians, making it the only African country to escape colonial rule. But one place where the Italians left a lasting legacy was in the food. Zigni--widely regarded as the national dish of Eritrea--is basically pasta (or injera) and marinara seasoned with the local spices.

This is much less a production than many other Ethiopian recipes. Once you have berbere on hand, it is very easy to prepare this dish. In addition to tempeh, other suitable meat alternatives include TVP or fake ground beef crumbles.

Also, instead of spaghetti, this can also be served over cubed, roasted potatoes and/or over injeera.

Prep time: 1 cocktail (30 minutes)

4 TBSP olive oil, divided

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 ½ pounds tomatoes, chopped

1 TBSP + 1 tsp berbere (click here for recipe)

1 ½ tsp sea salt

Two dozen or more good grinds of black pepper

½ tsp cayenne

Juice of 1 medium lemon

6-8 ounces dry spaghetti (I prefer whole wheat)

8 ounce package tempeh, crumbled

Fresh-grated, high quality Parmesan cheese

Heat a pot or Dutch oven with 2 TBSP oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until onion begins to turn transparent, about 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and sauté another 2 minutes.

Then add tomatoes, berbere, salt, pepper, cayenne, and lemon juice. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring frequently until sauce reaches the consistency of a marinara sauce—about 15 minutes (but can vary significantly, depending on the moisture content of the tomatoes).

Once you get the sauce simmering, cook the spaghetti. And as you cook the spaghetti and simmer the sauce, you can also sauté the tempeh. Start by heating the remaining two TBSP oil in a frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add the crumbled tempeh and stir frequently until it turns a nice golden brown. Remove tempeh from heat and set aside.

When the sauce is ready, stir in the tempeh and simmer another minute or two. Remove from heat and serve the sauce over the pasta (or potatoes). Top with parmesan.