Wrap in Ethiopian "tablecloth"

Felix Ruchaevsky

Many repatriates who came to Israel in the 90s of the last century from the Soviet Union were surprised to find Jews there who were completely different from them, indistinguishable in appearance from Arabs, Persians or Hindus. But the main surprise for them was the dark-skinned Jews - in an effort to be politically correct, I will call them Afro-Jews. Their life, their way of life is very different from what we are used to. And their food is just as original.

No one still knows for sure when Jews arrived in Ethiopia. Let’s just say that, according to the Ethiopian legend, equally recognized by both local Christians and Jews, the founders of the “Solomon Dynasty” that ruled the country were King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In any case, between 1977 and 1993, the vast majority of Ethiopian Jews moved to Israel. As is the case with other places where Jews live, in Ethiopia they adopted the traditions of local gastronomy. The only difference is that the Jews in Ethiopia kept kashrut.

African fast food

The main iconic dish - like pasta for Italians or hamburger for Americans - was and remains for Ethiopian Jews the injera flatbread. Flatbread and flatbread, made from dark flour that looks like rye. In fact, injera requires flour from the mountain plant teff, which is actually similar in color to rye. The flour is fermented—today, anyway—with yeast, and the dough is allowed to ferment for several days. Just imagine, those of you who have at least once made mash: the smell of sour fermenting dough is very persistent, it is difficult to get rid of it. But traditions must be respected.

Let's go further. Every Ethiopian family in Israel has a thin sheet of iron. It is placed on the fire, and the fermented dough is poured onto the hot sheet in a stream, from which a spongy, large diameter (the larger and thinner, the better) injera is obtained. In the Ethiopian tradition, injera has many functions. Injera (50–60 cm in diameter) covers a low table, at which the family sits on Shabbat, and other dishes are placed on the injera, like on a tablecloth. She and the bread - each of those present tears off slices of it, so that the “tablecloth” shrinks like shagreen leather, and by the end there is not a piece left of it at all - but the injera and the plate - in Ethiopian home cooking they do not serve cutlery - and a napkin: food is placed into a piece of injera like Mexican burritos, and the last piece is used to wipe the mouth. So injera is a must. Improvisation is possible only when it comes to the filling.

You can put anything inside - stewed vegetables, for example, although the most popular option is certainly vot (or wot). This is what we call fried meat with hot sauce. The simplest example of a common Ethiopian fast food: finely chopped pieces of beef are fried in hot oil with chopped hot peppers, placed on a slice of injera, sprinkled with berbery sauce - and the dish is ready.

Berbery sauce (aka berbere or bery)

Ingredients: 2-3 medium-sized onions, 2 tbsp. l. extra virgin olive oil, small head of garlic, 1 tbsp. l. hot red paprika, 0.5 tbsp. l. ground black pepper, 0.5 tbsp. l. cumin, 1 tbsp. l. ground ginger, 1 tsp. chopped cardamom, salt to taste.

Fry finely chopped onion and finely chopped garlic in olive oil. Add all the spices, pour in a glass of water and gradually simmer the mixture until the sauce becomes thick.

Burberry sauce can be served with any traditional Ethiopian - and Ethiopian Jewish - dish, you can't go wrong. Ethiopians, by the way, often eat raw meat, also finely chopped: seasoned with spicy sauces and properly marinated in the sauce, it can also be served at the festive table. This food is called kytfo (or kitfo), and most of all it resembles European tartare. Of course, only the freshest chilled meat is used for it. Of course, Ethiopian Jews process it according to the laws of kashrut, so the meat becomes salty, and if you are going to experiment with kytfo, you need to be careful with salt. But the sauce for kytfo, as already mentioned, is still necessary. Burberry would be perfect. Take some kytfo, flavor it with berberry, wrap it in injera - and you’ll have a quick meal no worse than burritos, pizza or shawarma.

To avoid getting burned

Davlat (or dulat) is finely chopped innards (kidneys, liver, spleen, pieces of tripe - stomach), fried in hot olive oil with onions and green peppers, so hot that everything in your mouth will also be hot. I can’t guarantee that the name is reproduced accurately, but this is how it is perceived by ear.

Ethiopian cuisine, as is known, is the most isolated in Africa, but this dish has analogues: Jerusalem solyanka (see: Lechaim. 2013. No. 11), and Azerbaijani jiz-byz. It’s easy to make, wrap it in injera, and dinner is ready. Do Ethiopian Jews have a more complex dish, you ask? Yes, but not by much. First of all, the already mentioned wot, the roast. Alcha vot - roast beef. Doro vot - made from poultry, and with fried hot red pepper...

You've probably already noticed that Ethiopian cuisine is primarily meat-based. Fish is often present in it in the form of fillet (any fish), fried with onions and hot peppers. But meat is more traditional - beef, lamb, poultry. So let's get back to our chicken roast.

It is believed that the housewife should be able to cut the carcass in such a way as to obtain a dozen pieces. Maybe there is a connection here with the 12 tribes of Israel? I don't know, I won't lie. In any case, this difficulty can be circumvented by taking half a dozen shanks and half a dozen pieces of breast. So that there is a kilogram of meat.

Doro Watt

Ingredients: chicken, cut into 12 pieces (or, for simplicity, 6 chicken drumsticks and 6 pieces of chicken breast) - approximately 1 kg, 6 chicken eggs, 100 ml olive oil, for the spinach sauce - 1 kg spinach, 2 medium sized onions , 5–6 cloves of garlic, 4 tbsp. l. olive oil, 100 ml ready-made berberry sauce.

Fry chicken pieces in hot oil until nicely browned. Add boiled and peeled hard-boiled eggs to them. Fry everything together for a few minutes, and then pour in the sauce - berberry or spinach sauce prepared on its basis.

The sauce is prepared like this. Chop the onion into small cubes, as well as the garlic, and fry in olive oil. Add washed and dried spinach to them and fry everything together for three to four minutes. Then pour in two glasses of water and simmer for about 10 minutes, then pour in the berberry sauce and simmer for a few more minutes until done.

Pour this sauce over the fried chicken pieces and serve. Or you can put it in the oven for another 20 minutes, and your patience will be rewarded.

And since we’re talking about spinach, I can’t help but insert bast into the line. Yes, the Ethiopians love him - but how the Israelis love him! And how I love it... You can simply stew spinach with onions and garlic and wrap it in injera - believe me, this is a pleasure, not a meal. If you also season your finished spinach with pepper - this time green, it doesn’t get any hotter - you’ll get a real Ethiopian specialty.

And here's another one for you - now made from lentils. Can this dish be defined as a roast? Hardly. But it's called "Mr. Watt." The largest lentils are chosen for it, boiled in water, and onions, garlic and hot black pepper fried in olive oil are added to the resulting “porridge”. As you noticed, the operations are standard: the range of techniques in Ethiopian cuisine is very limited. As is the presentation: missir votte, like any other votte, is wrapped in injera. Unless they put berberry sauce on it. But he puts himself out there.

As the recipes are listed, the reader can’t help but naturally ask: how can you eat all these peppers? Here's how: Ethiopians wash down their fiery food with tej, a honey wash. Ethiopian Jews still greatly respect beer mixed with orange juice. I myself saw how they spend an eternity drinking this drink - sitting in a circle and having leisurely conversations. You can also try. However, you don’t even have to put so much pepper.