Posted on 04/08/2016 4:43:56 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
I worked for several years in a large office that included many people who were originally from other countries. We had people from India, the Philippines, China, Korea, and Africa; and our office potlucks were amazing.
I first tasted Ethiopian food at one of those parties, when a young woman made 'Siga Wot', a spicy beef stew; and 'Injera', the spongy, fermented sourdough bread that is used to scoop up other foods, and sometimes used as a sort of 'plate'.
To make Siga Wot, you must first have Berbere, a spicy seasoning used in many Ethiopian dishes. There are many slightly different versions of it - some include Fenugreek, which I'm not crazy about and leave out. (I believe that Berbere may be the same type of seasoning that shows up in many Ethiopian recipes as "chow".)
Here is the Epicurious recipe for Berbere:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/ethiopian-spice-mix-berbere-104015
And here is a recipe for the Siga Wot (there are many versions, just as with any of our classic American dishes; this is just one):
http://www.african-food-recipes.com/ethiopian-siga-wat.html
The narration of the following video appears to be in Amharic, but it gives you an idea of the technique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR5o0lpI-bw
This is best served with real Injera; I haven't made the bread myself yet, but we were recently in a local Seventh Day Adventist shop and they had Teff flour, so I bought some and will try making it soon. (Be sure that you get Teff *flour*, and not the whole grain. The grain (the plant is actually a grass) is so fine that you would have difficulty trying to grind it into flour. The brand we purchased is Bob's Red Mill; but it is also sold in bulk in health food stores.
Here is the Exploratorium's recipe for Injera; it's a recipe that uses some whole wheat flour, which many Ethiopians who have come to America have adapted to include, probably because until very recently Teff was not widely available in the US, and mixing it with other flour made the Teff that they did have go further. But you can also find recipes made entirely of Teff; which is what I'm going to try.
https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/recipe-injera.html
Lastly, one of the most fascinating things to me about Ethiopia is Lalibela, and its rock-cut churches:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalibela
-JT
I thought Ethiopian bread was made from millet flour. Live and learn - I had some at an Ethiopian restaurtant about 3 decades ago. Lovely.
I make a lot of flat breads but have never tried that. Yesterday I made besan pancakes, they have various Hindi/etc names. I might try socca using chickpea flour one of these days. I love besan flour since it is so fine (often chickpea flour is more coarse) and it is made from toasted chickpeas, so it cooks very fast and very digestible.
Give me tips! I’ve never made marmelade before! The recipe I have says to drop a spoonful on a plate often during cooking, and tip the plate - if it slides it needs more cooking. Will that help? I don’t want glue.
I’d experiment. I know the rule but I’ve found that if there is some movement of the jelly on the cold plate it doesn’t harden up like rock. It’s so easy to overcook! I’m no expert, believe me. But, for me, I like jam/jelly/marm to be runny rather than overcooked.
I think millet is used in some recipes; there are many combinations of flours used to approximate a teff Injera, usually the result of inability to purchase teff itself in various locales.
On the other hand, I’ve seen recipes where ‘teff’ and ‘millet’ seem to be used interchangeably for Teff. I’m not sure where the confusion lies; but the ‘real’ traditional Injera is all teff.
-JT
In my experience, Dragon Fruit has more of a mild melon taste.
I like to remove the flesh by dicing it inside the skin, as you might an avocado; scoop it out and then serve the dice back in the skin with a drizzle of honey.
-JT
LOL!
But that looks like a very good gluten-free brownie.
Thanks for the plastic knife tip!
-JT
What I like about it is the gorgeous pink against that polka-dotted inside. But the outside isn’t edible, is it? So you use the pretty pink rind as a sort of shell to hold the dice?
Yes; I’ve never tried to eat the skin, but I doubt it’s edible. It does make a pretty little ‘boat’ for the fruit.
-JT
An interesting question: what is your preferred cocoa powder. I like to use cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate in my brownies. I was wondering what everyone else used?
This cake of his looks wonderful:
http://www.marcussamuelsson.com/recipe/red-rooster-devils-food-cake
-JT
It’s such a gorgeous fruit. What I would do without my H Mart, I don’t know. I swan around looking at everything and eavesdropping on the conversations. Since they are generally in Mandarin and Korean, it’s pretty pointless.
Cooks Illustrated tested supermarket brands against the very expensive Callebaut; and the old standby Hershey’s wound up being the winner. This link has the ratings, as well as a lot of info on how cocoa is processed:
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/taste_tests/573-supermarket-cocoa-powder
LOL! We have a similar store nearby, but since I’m in a mostly Hispanic community, all the people who work there speak Spanish. I can communicate with them a bit; but they don’t know what many of the unfamiliar products are.
Now and then I’ll accost an Asian person and hope they speak enough English to tell me what a package says on the front.
-JT
When I lived on the Jersey Shore, we had many Hispanic grocery stores. I would visit to buy goods although I am not into Mexican food the way so many others are (my culinary interests are primarily European and Indian and Asian). Those little delis were superb!
I’m always so shy to ask people to read labels. The Asians seem unfriendly but that may just be my perception due to my reluctance to ask for help.
You’re so smart, Jamestown!
I read that too and went out and bought Hershey’s Dark. I had turned against it because so many of my British food magazines were so down on Hershey’s - they’re actually crazy on the subject - that I assumed it must be horrible. So when Cook’s came up with this test, I felt vindicated and ran out and bought some. I had been using Droste which is wonderful but so expensive.
Do you prefer cocoa to melted c. in your brownies?
What family of grain is teff? I’ve barely heard the name before. I know milled is related to sorghum and the millet grains are very small, round and pale yellow. I cook it quite often, like rice but one cup grain to three cups water, as opposed to rice 1 to 2.
I have made orange marmalade three times, would love to make a mix of lemon and orange or lime and orange but I only use organic fruit, they put horrid stuff on citrus. So I have to wait until I find good oranges at an affordable price. The recipe I used that seemed to work was in a fairly recent edition of Blue Ball canning book. What recipe do you use? I try to make about 9 or 10 pints at once since it’s so much trouble.
My problem is that I love marmalade so much I can eat a jar in a few days.
Naan is basically (from what I’ve eaten once or twice in Indian restaurants, gleaned from internet recipes, and made myself) similar to chapatis, but with yeast added to the dough. I like making naan and eating them, many recipes I’ve seen are white flour but I use part white and part whole wheat.
It has been forever since I made brownies; but I think the ones I’ve liked best have used cocoa.
-JT
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