Recipes

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

Vary Amin'anana (Malagasy Greens and Rice)

Vary amin'anana is rice cooked together with greens, tomatoes, onion and ginger until it becomes a thick, soupy porridge. It is Malagasy, and the name says exactly what it is: vary is rice, anana is greens. It is everyday food in the most literal sense. Rice is eaten at nearly every meal in Madagascar, and vary amin'anana is one of the most common ways of preparing it, cheap, filling, made from whatever leaves are available, and eaten at any hour including breakfast. Brèdes is the Malagasy term for the family of edible greens it uses, which covers everything from mustard greens to watercress to cassava leaves depending on the season. Ginger is the note that makes it Malagasy rather than generically green. It goes in early with the tomatoes and onions and runs through the whole dish. Two things about this particular version. It uses brown rice, which is unusual, white rice is standard in Madagascar, and it has been converted to a slow cooker, which is not a Malagasy method. The source explains why: it was adapted so it could be transported to a fundraiser. That provenance is worth recording, since it explains both oddities. The proportions are worth reading: twelve cups of water to five cups of rice gives something soupy rather than fluffy, which is correct.

4 hr 20 minEasyMadagascar

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook