Recettes Ethiopia

Shiro Wat (Ethiopian Chickpea Stew)

Shiro wat is ground chickpea stew, and it is among the most eaten dishes in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Onion, garlic, tomato and berbere are cooked down in oil, chickpea flour is whisked in, and the result thickens to something between a thick gravy and a puree, smooth enough to spread and eaten with injera. Its position has a great deal to do with the religious calendar. Ethiopian Orthodox practice includes a very large number of fasting days, on which no meat, eggs or dairy are eaten, and shiro contains none of them. It is standard on Wednesdays and Fridays, through the eight weeks of Tsom, the Great Lent, and it is eaten during Ramadan by Ethiopian and Eritrean Muslims too. That is a dish serving two religions in one country without modification. It is also cheap and quick, which explains the rest of its reach. Shiro powder, sold ready mixed with the spices already in it, is available across Ethiopia and increasingly abroad, in two kinds: mitten shiro, which is red and carries berbere, and netch shiro, which is white and mild. The dish takes different forms by consistency and name: shiro fessess is runny and served over injera with chillies, shiro tegamino is thick and cooked in an earthenware pot until it bubbles and caramelises at the base, and shiro fit fit shreds injera through it for breakfast.

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35 minEasyEthiopia

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Kitcha

Kitcha is an unleavened Ethiopian and Eritrean flatbread, wheat flour, water and salt, rolled thin and cooked dry in a pan on both sides until it colours in characteristic dark spots. It is written ቂጣ in Amharic and ቂቻ in Tigrinya, and it belongs to both traditions. Its simplicity is the point: no yeast, no rising time, three ingredients. It is the bread you make when bread is needed now, and it is one of the first things many people learn to cook. It is usually served warm with melted spiced butter, which turns something plain into something rich. Chilli and cardamom are sometimes worked into the dough itself. Its most important role is as the base of fit-fit, also called fir-fir, where the bread is torn into pieces and mixed with spiced butter, berbere and sometimes stew, and eaten with the hands. Kitcha fit-fit is a breakfast staple across Ethiopia and Eritrea, and it is the reason kitcha is often made in quantity: the bread is the ingredient rather than the finished thing. The dark spots that appear during cooking are correct, not a mistake.

EasyEthiopia · East Africa

Recette de Blessing · Africook