National Dish of the Week: Ethiopia

Wat (Stew)

Ethiopian cuisine and Eritrean cuisine characteristically consists of spicy vegetable and meat dishes, usually in the form of wat (or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread, which is about 20 inches in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour. Ethiopians eat with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. No utensils are used.

About half of the Ethiopian population is Orthodox Christian. During Lent, the forty days preceding the Christian holiday of Easter, Orthodox Christians are prohibited from eating any animal products (no meat, cheese, milk, or butter). Instead they eat dishes made from beans, lentils, and chick peas called mitin shiro that is a mixture of beans and berbere . This is made with lentils, peas, field peas, chick peas, and peanuts. The beans are boiled, roasted, ground, and combined with berbere . This mixture is made into a vegetarian wot by adding vegetable oil and then is shaped like a fish or an egg; it is eaten cold. A vegetable alecha may also be eaten during Lent.

During festive times such as marriage feasts, kwalima , a kind of beef sausage, is eaten. This sausage is made with beef, onions, pepper, ginger, cumin, basil, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and tumeric. It is smoked and dried.

Ethiopian cuisine is mostly made up of breads, stews (known as Wat), grains, and spices. Typically, an Ethiopian meal consists of a combination of injera (flatbread) with different wats, yet each diverse cultural group has their unique variation. A typical snack would be baked small pieces of bread called dabo kollo or local grains called kollo. Coffee is also a large part of Ethiopian culture/cuisine, after every meal a coffee ceremony is enacted and espresso coffee is drunk.

Berbere, a combination of powdered chili pepper and other spices (somewhat analogous to Southwestern American chili powder), is an important ingredient used in many dishes. Also essential is niter kibbeh, a clarified butter infused with ginger, garlic, and several spices. Wat stews all begin with a large amount of chopped red onions, which the cook simmers or sautees in a pot.

Fit-fit

The national dish of Ethiopia is wot , a spicy stew. Wot may be made from beef, lamb, chicken, goat, or even lentils or chickpeas, but it always contains spicy berbere . Alecha is a less-spicy stew seasoned with green ginger. For most Ethiopians, who are either Orthodox Christian or Muslim, eating pork is forbidden. Ethiopian food is eaten with the hands, using pieces of a type of flat bread called injera. Diners tear off a piece of injera , and then use it to scoop up or pinch off mouthfuls of food from a large shared platter. A soft white cheese called lab is popular. Although Ethiopians rarely use sugar in their cooking, honey is occasionally used as a sweetener. An Ethiopian treat is injera wrapped around a slab of fresh honeycomb with young honeybee grubs still inside. Injera is usually made from teff, a kind of grain grown in Ethiopia. The bread dough is fermented for several days in a process similar to that used to make sourdough bread. Usually enough bread is made at one time for three days. Little fried snacks called dabo kolo are also popular.

Firfir or fitfit, made from shredded injera with spices, is a typical breakfast dish. Another popular breakfast food is dulet, a spicy mixture of tripe, liver, beef, and peppers with injera. Fatira consists of a large fried pancake made with flour, often with a layer of egg, eaten with honey. Chechebsa (or kita firfir) resembles a pancake covered with berbere and kibbeh, or spices, and may be eaten with a spoon.

During festive times such as marriage feasts, kwalima , a kind of beef sausage, is eaten. This sausage is made with beef, onions, pepper, ginger, cumin, basil, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and tumeric. It is smoked and dried.