Ethiopian Recipes

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.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hr 5 minEasyEthiopia · East Africa

Recipe by Debby · 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.

★★★★★Highest Rated

35 minEasyEthiopia

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

Injera (Ethiopian Flatbread)

Injera is the fermented flatbread of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and it is not a side dish. It is the plate: stews and vegetables are spooned directly onto a large injera, and diners tear pieces from a second one to scoop, so the meal ends with the plate itself eaten. Teff is what it is made from, a tiny round grain that grows in the Ethiopian highlands and is among the smallest cereals in the world. Teff carries almost no gluten, which means it cannot be raised in the way wheat bread is, and injera instead depends on fermentation. Wild yeasts and lactic bacteria in a starter, called ersho, work the batter over several days, producing the carbon dioxide that gives injera its distinctive surface of small holes, its spongy texture and its sour flavour. That sourness is the point and it varies. A short fermentation gives a mild injera; three days or more gives the sharpness Ethiopians expect. The recipe here uses commercial yeast and a shorter rest, which is a practical shortcut rather than the traditional method, and it produces a milder bread. It also allows very fine millet flour in place of teff, which is easier to find but changes the flavour and the colour.

★★★★★Highest Rated

25 hr 15 minMediumEthiopia

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

Awaze (Ethiopian Chilli Dip)

Awaze is the Ethiopian red chilli paste, built on berbere and loosened with an alcoholic liquid into a thick dip. It is extremely hot, it takes five minutes to make, and it goes with almost everything on an Ethiopian table. Berbere is what it is built on, and berbere is itself a blend: dried chillies, garlic, ginger, onion, rue seeds, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Awaze takes that and turns it into something spoonable. The liquid matters more than it sounds. Traditionally it is tej, the Ethiopian honey wine made with gesho, the shiny-leaf buckthorn, or areki, a strong spirit. This recipe uses red wine, which the contributor prefers and which is far easier to find. Its traditional place is at celebrations. Awaze is made for weddings and special occasions and served with raw meat, and gored gored, cubed raw beef with dipping sauce, is considered by many an unofficial national dish that no Ethiopian celebration is complete without. That is worth knowing about what the dip is for. Because of the wine, this is not alcohol-free, and mitmita, the other Ethiopian chilli blend with pili-pili peppers and cardamom, is a related but different thing.

5 minEasyEthiopia

Recipe by Blessing · Africook