Recettes

Ethiopian Berbere Cabbage - Atakilt Wat

Atakilt wat is the vegetable stew of the Ethiopian table: cabbage, carrot and potato cooked down with onion, garlic and spice until they are tender without collapsing. The name is Amharic, atakilt for vegetable and wat for stew, which describes it exactly. Its place is on the shared injera platter rather than on a plate of its own. An Ethiopian meal is served as several dishes arranged together on a single round of injera, and atakilt wat is almost always among them, providing a mild, sweet counterweight to the sharper and hotter wat alongside it. It is the dish that gives the platter its balance. That role also makes it central to fasting. The Ethiopian Orthodox calendar includes many days on which no animal products are eaten, and the country's vegan cooking is consequently deep and long practised rather than recent. Atakilt wat contains nothing animal at any point, which is why it appears as reliably during fasting periods as outside them. Berbere, the chilli and spice blend built on chilli, garlic, ginger, fenugreek and a long list of aromatics, is what carries it, though this version keeps the quantity modest so the vegetables stay forward.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hr 5 minEasyEthiopia · East Africa

Recette de Debby · Africook

Gomen Wat (Ethiopian Collard Greens)

Gomen is the Ethiopian word for collard greens, and gomen wat is the dish made from them: greens braised down with onion, garlic, ginger and spice until they wilt but keep some bite. It appears on almost every Ethiopian platter, spooned onto injera alongside the meat and lentil stews. It is also called ye'abasha gomen or abesha gomen. Abesha is a term used collectively for Ethiopians and Eritreans, so the name translates roughly as Ethiopian collard greens, distinguishing the local variety and preparation from others. Collards are eaten widely across the continent and beyond, from Tanzania and Kenya to Brazil, Portugal and the southern United States, but the Ethiopian treatment is specific. Niter kibbeh is what makes it specific. It is clarified butter infused with herbs and spices during the clarifying, closely comparable to Indian ghee except for that infusion, and it is the fat almost all Ethiopian cooking is built on. Using plain butter or oil produces a perfectly good pan of greens; it does not produce gomen wat. Because of the butter, this is vegetarian rather than vegan, and a fasting version made with oil exists for the Orthodox fasting days when animal products are avoided.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

30 minEasyEthiopia

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

35 minEasyEthiopia

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Miris (Sudanese Stew with Lamb Fat)

Miris is a Sudanese stew of cassava and okra cooked in lamb fat with onion. It is served with asida, the stiff Sudanese porridge, or with kisra flatbread. The lamb fat is the point, and it is worth understanding rather than substituting away. Only two teaspoons go into the pot, but rendered sheep's fat carries a distinct, slightly gamey savouriness that no oil reproduces, and using it as a cooking medium rather than as a meat is characteristic of a cuisine where nothing from an animal is wasted. The source offers pork fatback, beef fat or olive oil as alternatives and is honest that they change the dish. Sudanese meals are built around a communal central dish with stews and sauces alongside, eaten with the right hand using flatbread or a stiff porridge, asida or kisra. Miris belongs to that format rather than being served as a plated course. Two notes about the recipe as written. The source's prose describes onions, dried okra and sheep's fat, while its ingredient list specifies cassava, and both have been kept since the combination is plausible. And cassava must be cooked thoroughly, the raw root contains compounds that release cyanide, and the ten minutes the method allows assumes it is already properly processed.

35 minEasySudan

Recette de Nympha · Africook