Ethiopian Food and Alien Spices
I was reminded over at Jen’s how much I loved Ethiopian food the couple times I had it, both at restaurants in Montreal. I’d go regularly if we had one around here, especially good and reasonably priced.
In the past I toyed with the idea of making it myself, even to the point of looking up recipes such as these.
I don’t even remember what dishes I had and which I preferred. They were all good, and there were several, shared among a bunch of us who banded together to go. I rather liked the serving method. 4 - 5 people sat around a large round tray, covered with a giant flatbread, called injera. You spooned food from a serving dish onto the bread in front of you, ate it using other, smaller pieces of the bread, and finished up eating the last of it with the bread on the tray. We had, as I recall, chicken, beef, lamb and vegetarian dishes.
Anyhow, looking at the recipes, one thing is common; the berbere sauce. It’s an ingredient, which in turn you make.
It reminds me of an ingredient for an Indian cashew chicken recipe I saved from the recipe carnival a few weeks ago. It’s garam masala, which can be bought at Indian markets, or made with a mix of cinnamon sticks, cloves, black peppercorns, black cardamon pods, and black cumin. Er… okay then. It’ll be like a treasure hunt to find all that.
In this case, exact details depending which recipe you read, it takes something along the lines of cumin seed, whole cloves, cardamon seeds (whats?), black peppercorns, allspice, fenugreek seeds (what??), onion flakes, various chiles, ginger, nutmeg, turmeric, garlic, salt, oil, red wine, cayenne, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, and shallots. Exact ones included or not depending on the recipe.
Fenugreek seeds? I suppose I should Google it.
This, and not merely being single, may have been what put me off of trying the Ethiopian recipes previously. But hey, while we’re exploring the joy of cooking and stuff here, maybe it’s time to seek out new spices, and new recipes to use them in, to boldly cook like I have not cooked before.
And no, not sticks and rocks people.
I am used to mentioned having had Ethiopian food and being asked in a lame attempt at comedy, “Ethiopian? What do they eat, sticks and rocks?” Sheesh.
You can find fenugreek at your local middle eastern markets. I think it is the seed of cilantro.
Posted by Kaos on 12/17 at 01:37 PMActually, Coriander is the seed of the cilantro plant. Fenugreek is altogether different. It is middle eastern though, probably turkish in origin since it is a MAJOR spice in Armenian cuisine. Fenugreek is the main ingredient in a common Armenian spice mixture called chaman (yum) that gets used in everything from meat marinade to rice dishes.
But you should be able to get fenugreek (at least the seeds) in any grocery store that has a fairly extensive spice section (it does come in one of those glass bottles) or any gourmet cooking store.
Cardamon seeds are VERY popular in Indian food. Almost similar to cinnamon, but a little spicier. You should also be able to find those in the same place as the fenugreek. Given the prevalence of indian food these days, the Cardamon might be easier to find.
Posted by caltechgirl on 12/17 at 03:47 PMI think we discussed Ethiopian food a year or two ago - forever in blog time. Denver has a number of Ethiopian restaurants, and at least one of them also sells spice mixes to go. So if you ever make it here…
And don’t forget Sadie have a couple of playmates here almost the same age.
Posted by Walter on 12/17 at 04:19 PM
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