The Ethiopian Experience While Sharing Many Features of Southern Indian Cuisine, Ethiopian Cooking Has a Distinctive Character and Favour
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CHEF’S LARDER The Ethiopian experience While sharing many features of southern Indian cuisine, Ethiopian cooking has a distinctive character and favour. Rachel Demuth reveals why it’s well worth mastering the making of traditional injera, vegetable ‘wats’ and making favourful seasoned oil and spice mixes. Ethiopia is a country of beautiful diversity, butter for cooking and complex spice mixes A starter usually needs five days before use, with deserts, high snow-covered mountains for flavouring. by adding a little more flour and water every and fertile river valleys. The highlands of An Ethiopian meal is all about sharing. day or two. Ethiopia – if not affected by the regular In Ethiopian restaurants diners sit on small The choice of vegetables used in droughts – can grow a wide range of stools around a mesob, which is a large, Ethiopian dishes does depend on the vegetables and fruit, and the Coptic colourful woven basket with a lid. Inside the altitude and season, but on a platter you Christians from the Ethiopian Orthodox basket a large metal plate called a gebata is will always find gomen, which are collard Church have a long tradition of vegetarian topped with an injera pancake piled with a greens, a green leafy cabbage. Here in the cooking. They abstain from meat for variety of spicy wats (stews), spicy lentils and UK you can use spring greens or kale, and more than 200 days a year, fasting every vegetables. A complete Ethiopian vegetarian the greens are simply sautéed in a little oil Wednesday and Friday, as well as for Lent meal is known as yetsom beyaynetu – yetsom with some garlic. Other vegetables that are and other religious occasions. Fasting for means ‘fasting’ and beyaynetu means frequently consumed in Ethiopia include them means abstaining from all animal ‘combination platter’, so you’re guaranteed white cabbage, red onions, shallots, garlic, products, which includes dairy, so their a vegan eating experience. In principle, this potatoes, squash, carrots, green beans, dishes are ideal for vegans. resembles an Indian thali but the flavours are tomatoes, and green and red chillies. Historically, Ethiopia played an important uniquely Ethiopian. No cutlery is used and If you like Indian food you’ll love Ethiopian part in the spice trade, so its traditional people eat with only their right hand, tearing food. It does take a little time and effort cooking has some similarities to southern off a piece of injera to scoop up the food to make the injera, the spice mixes and Indian cooking. Spices from southern India from the sharing platter. They even have a seasoned oil, but if you don’t have time to came by boat from Cochin to the Horn of custom called gursha – feeding each other by make them all, the vegetable dishes and Africa on their way to the Mediterranean, placing the food into their mouths. spiced lentils are delicious simply served and the Ethiopians traded gold and ivory Injera is the iconic food of Ethiopia. It is with rice or flatbreads, and you can buy for spices and textiles. Consequently, the made from teff flour, which is the staple berbere spice mix from supermarkets too. Ethiopian injera pancake is very similar to starch, and all Ethiopians will eat it twice the southern Indian dosa, which is also made a day regardless of class or status. Teff Ethiopian cookery courses run throughout with a fermented batter that is sour and is the smallest of all grains with 2,500 to the year at Demuths Cookery School. Find bubbly. In both countries they use clarified 3,000 seeds to a gram and is native to out more at demuths.co.uk. Ethiopia, where it is thought to have been a staple food for 3,000 years. A tufted grass that also provides a reliable food ABOUT RACHEL for grazing animals, teff is well suited to ETHIOPIAN SHARING PLATTER Chef-proprietor of growing in the high plateau being both These dishes are all designed to be eaten the award-winning very disease- and drought-resistant. Rather together as one meal, with a small spoonful Demuths restaurant like South American quinoa, it is a highly of each one piled onto the freshly made in Bath for 25 years, nutritious grain providing two-thirds of injera pancakes. You will need to plan ahead, Rachel Demuth dietary nutrition, and it’s the main reason as the starter mix for the injera will take five is now dedicated why vegetarian Ethiopians are not anaemic days to ferment before you can use it to to running as they eat such quantities that it provides make the batter. Demuths cookery them with enough daily iron. The key to the special taste of injera is its school, which offers a range of themed Injera workshops, guest chef events, cookery sourness, which on its own is an acquired holidays in France and Italy, and the taste, but it goes very well with spicy FERMENTED PANCAKES Demuths Vegetarian and Vegan Diplomas Ethiopian dishes. The main way to achieve Injera are fermented pancakes that are for professional chefs and keen cooks. the sourness is to make a specific teff starter, made using teff flour. Teff comes in white As a well-travelled foodie, Rachel loves similar to sourdough bread or Indian dosa. and reddish varieties, but the lighter the to combine her passion for global cuisine The starter is made with a mix of teff flour, colour of the teff the more expensive it is to with locally grown produce. wild yeast on the grain, and water. The buy. Teff is often mixed with sorghum, a far ALL IMAGES © ROB WICKS/EAT PICTURES UNLESS PICTURES UNLESS © ROB WICKS/EAT ALL IMAGES HELEN LAWRENCE STYLING: FOOD OTHERWISE. STATED longer the fermentation, the sourer it will be. cheaper grain. It can be a challenge to make 42 | 042-7_VL104[RD_Ethiopia]NTSJ.indd 42 30/01/2019 19:35 www.vegetarianliving.co.uk | 43 042-7_VL104[RD_Ethiopia]NTSJ.indd 43 30/01/2019 19:35 INJERA FERMENTED PANCAKES an authentic injera as teff flour is not easy to 115ml of the warm water and leave for 1 day. using, feed it with more teff flour and leave it find, so you’ll need to buy it online. On day 5 the starter will be ready to use. to become bubbly again. 2 To make the injera, mix the teff flour PER SERVING 134 cals, fat 2g, sat fat 0g, Makes 8 x 20cm injera with the warm water and starter, and leave carbs 24g, sugars 0g, protein 5g, salt 0.04g, Prep 5 days covered in a warm place for a few hours. fibre 3g Cook 20 mins 3 When you are ready to cook, stir in the bicarbonate of soda. If the batter mixture For the starter: seems quite thick, add enough water to mix Ye’misir wot • 175g teff flour to a consistency of thin pancake batter. SPICY RED LENTILS • 420ml warm water 4 Heat a non-stick frying pan (about 22cm with a tight fitting lid) over a medium heat, Serves 4 | Prep 15 mins | Cook 45 mins For the injera: and brush with a little sunflower oil. Pour a • 250g teff flour small ladle (about 75ml) of batter around • 200g red lentils, rinsed and drained • 400ml warm water the outer part of the hot pan. Tilt and swirl the • 1 litre water • 8 tbsp starter pan so that the batter spreads to cover the • 3 tbsp niter kebbeh seasoned cooking oil • 1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda surface evenly right to the centre of the pan. (see recipe, opposite) • sunflower oil, for frying This method ensures that there is enough • 1 medium onion, finely chopped coverage right from the edges to the centre • 4 cloves garlic, finely minced 1 To make the starter, mix 75g of the teff of the pan, which will make it easier to • 5cm piece of fresh ginger, minced flour with 190ml of the warm water and remove the injera once it is cooked. If the • 1 tbsp berbere hot spice mix leave covered for 2 days. On day 3, stir the edges are too thin and fragile, they can stick (see recipe, opposite) mix and whisk in 50g of the teff flour and and be difficult to loosen from the pan. You • 1 tsp paprika 115ml of the warm water and leave for 1 day. may need to add a little more batter if it • 3 tbsp tomato purée On day 4, stir in the last 50g of teff flour and doesn’t quite cover evenly. 5 Cover the pan with a lid, lower the heat a 1 Place the lentils and water in a saucepan little to avoid the base of the injera browning over a high heat and bring to the boil. too much, and cook for 1 minute or until it Reduce the heat and simmer for about SPICE MIXES looks dry on top with a smattering of burst 20 minutes until soft and tender, removing Spices are a very important part to bubbles over the surface. any froth that rises to the surface as they Ethiopian cooking and are made into two 6 Remove the lid and cook the injera for cook. Set aside, without draining the distinctive blends: mitmita and berbere. a minute or two longer, gently loosening cooking water. MITMITA is a powdered seasoning mix the edges by running a spatula around the 2 Heat the niter kebbeh seasoned cooking that is orange-red in colour and contains pan. The injera is ready when it is dry on the oil in a separate saucepan over a medium- ground chilli peppers, black cardamom surface with lots of burst bubbles, and the low heat.