Wot's for dinner?
May 31, 2010 10:44 PM Subscribe
Does anyone have experience cooking Ethiopian food? I live in a part of Oakland, CA with a lot of Ethiopian groceries that I'd like to start taking advantage of. I'm looking for any info on cookbooks, kitchen implements, pantry items or special injera-fu techniques I should know about.
We also have and use that book. And when I say "we," I mean my husband mostly. We buy injera instead of making it ourselves. We also buy the main spice, berbere, but otherwise I think mostly we make it all.
Our homemade Ethiopian food got a lot better once we had eaten more Ethiopian food ourselves, so we had a better idea of what to aim for.
We do tend the alter the recipes to make them a bit less spicy and buttery.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:49 AM on June 1, 2010
Our homemade Ethiopian food got a lot better once we had eaten more Ethiopian food ourselves, so we had a better idea of what to aim for.
We do tend the alter the recipes to make them a bit less spicy and buttery.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:49 AM on June 1, 2010
I'm so excited to have a cookbook to look for! I've been trying to find one for ages - thanks for asking the question, WASP-12b. :)
posted by purlgurly at 5:37 PM on June 1, 2010
posted by purlgurly at 5:37 PM on June 1, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Kitchen implements: Nothing special!
Pantry items: A metric ton of berbere will get you 80% of the way there. Mitmita is fun for making kitfo. You need black cumin every now and again (watch out, there're two seeds that go by that name - nigella and kala jeera. You're looking for nigella/kalonji)
I usually make my own niter kibbeh (spiced clarified butter) from store-bought clarified butter and the recipe in the cookbook, but you can clarify your own from normal butter if you like starting from scratch. You are going to be using a lot of this. A lot a lot. Never tell anyone how much butter/oil you're putting into the food, let them live a guilt-free life.
You'll find a lot of other spices and powders in the Ethiopian grocery store, but what I've listed above can deliver everything here.
Injera-fu: People make it sound like making injera is the most impossible thing in the world, I've never tried. I just buy it (and if you have an Ethiopian restaurant nearby but not a grocery store, restaurants will usually sell it to you for a small markup). The secrets for the food in general are cook everything for a seriously long time, be prepared to smell like Ethiopian food for a couple days, and don't be scared of the butter.
Really, you just buy that cookbook and the food makes itself.
posted by soma lkzx at 5:34 AM on June 1, 2010 [13 favorites]