Cooking Ethiopian

A while back, my sister and I went to the apartment of our friend, Ataklit, a native Ethiopian/Israeli, to cook some traditional Ethiopian food. He talked us through the process of making gomen (chard with onions and olive oil), dinch alicha (vegetarian stew with onion, carrot, potato, and turmeric), shiro (chickpea flour sauce with fried onions), fitifit (onion with tomato and ground red pepper), and the proper way to present someone with injera (Ethiopian flat bread made with teff flour).

Potatoes, for the dinch alicha. We started the potatoes in boiling water so they'd cook for 20-25 minutes. Later, we'll add carrots, onion, garlic, and turmeric.

In the meantime, we started sweating the chard, for the gomen.

Making the dinch alicha - after the potatoes started to get soft, we added the carrots and turmeric.

Gomen, sweating. Salt and oil added later.

This pot had diced onions that were sweating for a few minutes, until we added the olive oil. This is the beginning of the fitifit.

Ataklit buys his spices at the local Ethiopian market; you can't just get these spices anywhere! Above, Ethiopian red pepper (spicy*)

Ataklit and my sister going over his hand-written ingredient list.

red pepper

the ingredient list, written in Amharic

stirring the fitifit

tomatoes, chopped and ready to go in the fitifit.

These delicious onions are waiting for the remaining ingredients for the shiro.

Above, Ethiopian turmeric, called erd.

Chickpea flour, called mitin shiro. It was a little spicy.

Injera - Ethiopian flatbread

Its spongy texture and sour taste was new for me. It tasted like a slightly sour, tangy pancake or crepe, and was incredibly filling. To put in the fitifit, Ataklit asked us to bring him some injera. He told us the most acceptable way to bring someone injera if they ask for it is to fold it in half and then in half again. Otherwise, people might get offended.

We added some torn injera to the fitifit to add volume.

We broke up the pieces and let them absorb the liquid.

For the meal, we tore injera in half and rolled them to put on a plate. 
መልካም ምግብ
Melkam megeb! (Bon appetit in Amharic)

Bottom left: dinch alicha  Bottom right: injera
Top right: shiro  Below that: gomen and fitifit

Unrolled pieces of injera, ready for fillings. This piece of injera is used as a base for your food. It is topped with whatever you made, and then eaten at the end of the meal.

Delish! Clockwise from top left: dinch alicha, gomen, fitifit, and shiro

You are meant to pick up the food with additional pieces of injera, folding it into a handful.

My favorite was the turmeric-heavy dinch alicha. I took some home with me for lunch the next day. I was so full after the meal I could barely finish the injera on the bottom of the plate!

Ataklit pressed some tea to finish the meal. What a fun experience!

I encourage you to try authentic Ethiopian food. It's wonderful (and often vegetarian)!
See this site for Ethiopian recipes!

Rice, Rice Baby & The Food Network Kitchens

Good morning!
This past week was all about rice. We learned about different kinds of the grain, how to cook them, and of course, how to eat them! We made saffron rice pilaf, pad thai noodles with ground turkey, and dahl, a thick lentil stew/paste that is often served with rice. Below, you'll see a pile of saffron, one of the most expensive foods in the world. Harvested by hand from the stamen of the crocus flower, these threads are used to infuse food with a sharp/sweet aroma and bright yellow color. About 4,000 threads are used for an ounce.

The box below cost approximately $150 (for a few ounces).

Below, onions and garlic are sweating for dahl (on the left) and onions for rice pilaf (on the right). We worked in partner groups to get more variety of dishes complete in one class.

Right: lentils, water, and spices are added to the onions and garlic
Left: bay leaves, chicken broth, and saffron are added to the onions

Below, our chef explaining the process

Below, our chef demonstrating the technique for wok-prepared pad thai

Plated dahl and rice pilaf:

Mine and my partners' dish is second from the top on the left corner of the table. We plated the dish in a bowl with a sprig of cilantro as garnish. The finished pad thai is sitting at the bottom right of the table. In it, we put fried egg, ground turkey, chili paste, soy sauce, lime juice, and several other ingredients (see below). This was my takeaway portion that I had for lunch and dinner that day!

See bottom of post for pilaf and dahl recipes*


Later that afternoon, at the Food Network, I got a peek at one of the test kitchens. There are several other kitchen locations, including at the headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, and they are used for prepping food for beauty shoots, testing recipes, and even to shoot a few FN shows, like Chopped.

 Below, little appetizers are prepared.

 A little empty at the moment. Usually, it's full of people working.

 You can see the lights on the ceiling that are used when shooting shows.

Hopefully, I'll get up there again when there's a little more going on... Stay tuned!

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Saffron Rice Pilaf
2-3 servings
1 oz. butter or fat
1 oz. olive oil
2 oz. finely diced onion
1 cup long-grain rice

chicken stock (or water, if you prefer)

1 bay leaf

1 TB saffron "tea" (pinch of saffron in hot water)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 300F.

Make the saffron tea by adding a pinch of saffron to 1 TB of hot water.

Heat the chicken stock and add salt if needed. 

(*TIP: the more flavorful your liquid, the tastier your rice will be.) 

Heat butter and oil in saucepan and add onions when the liquid is hot.

Sweat the onions on medium heat until they are translucent. Stir periodically.

Add the rice and mix well for a few minutes.

Add the chicken stock or water, bay leaf, and saffron "tea." Taste and add salt if needed.

Stir well to avoid rice cling-ons on the side of the pot.

Cook until half of the liquid is absorbed, then cover and place in oven for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and fluff with fork. Something like this fork will allow for the fluffiest rice. Otherwise, use a regular fork.

Dahl
8 oz red lentils
washed and soaked for 20 minutes
2 TB canola oil
1 lg onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
3 1/2 cups hot water
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp garam masala

Heat oil in saucepan. Fry onions, garlic, and ginger until onion is golden brown.

Add turmeric and stir well. 

Drain the lentils and fry them in the pot for 2 minutes.

Add hot water and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until thick.

Add the garam masala and season to taste. Serve with rice or eat like thick soup.

Enjoy!

Culinary School First Week

Good morning! I have successfully made it through week 1 of culinary school with only one small burn... (As our chefstructor always says, "ASSUME EVERYTHING IS HOT!") We learned the history of food and restaurants, the brigade systems of kitchens all over the world, and knife skills and sharpening techniques.

 When given our set of knives (an 8" chef's knife, paring knife, boning knife, serrated slicing knife, thermometer, and peeler), we were told to make a mark on our set to distinguish it from the rest of the class's. I chose my initals, "AH":

 Our chefstructor, Avram Wiseman, was the executive sous chef of the United Nations for 4 years and continues to cater and work in kitchens in the New York area. Having trained in England and traveled to other countries, he is incredibly knowledgeable in all things food and teaches with enthusiasm and passion.

demonstrating the proper way to sharpen a knife on a stone

Our first knife skill lesson was learning to cut supremes, the fillet of the fruit. The knife-wielder using this technique trims away all the skin and pith of hard-skin fruit like grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and limes, and leaves only the "supreme" cut - a sliver of fruit that is ready to eat. Chef Wiseman helped me plate some of my supremes.

Then we learned the rondelle, small dice, medium dice, and large dice cuts. 

Finally, he showed us how to flute a mushroom. With deftness and a paring knife, he made the process look easy.

I gave it my best shot:

Next, we did julienne (1/8" x 1/8" x 2.5") and batonnet (1/4" x 1/4" x 2.5") cuts. Chef told us that our juliennes should fit exactly on the back of our knives:

On Wednesday, we started our first recipe: pico de gallo. He showed us how to concasse (blanch and shock) our tomatoes so the skins would peel right off.

 beginning the concasse

peeled tomatoes

Then we combined the tomatoes, scallions, cumin, salt, pepper, tomato juice, olive oil, and fresh garlic (I left out the cilantro, since the taste, and sometimes smell, makes me nauseated). It was delicious! We tried it with plain corn tortilla chips.

Thursday we cut onions. :,,) Despite our best efforts, we all cried. Chef told us that the only way to truly prevent tears when cutting onions is to use a fan to blow the onion schmutz away from you. Unluckily, I was facing the fan.

sad face

crying...

We cut these onions for a Sri Lankan rice that we whipped up in the second part of the class on Thursday. We used cardomom pods, cinnamon, turmeric, and the melted diced onions mixed with basmati rice for the most fragrant from-scratch rice I've eaten yet.

Determined to get the fluting technique down, I bought 2 lbs of mushrooms and practiced for an hour that night. 
This is how I did:

 I sauteed them in butter and cardamom, plated with wilted swiss chard and olive oil with cardamom sprinkle.

Not perfect, but I'll keep at it. :-)

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Pico de Gallo:

 2 tomatoes

(blanched for 20 seconds in boiling water), shocked in ice water and peeled

1 scallion

1-2 cloves of garlic

(finely minced)

 1/2 jalapeno

 (finely diced, seeds reserved. only use seeds if you want your tongue on fire)

 juice of 1/2 a lime

1/2 red onion

 (small dice, or cut into fancy shapes)

 1/2 tsp. or to taste of ground cumin

 1 TB olive oil

2 oz. (1/4 cup) tomato juice

(or more if you like your mixture a little wet)

 salt and pepper to taste

Seed and chop tomatoes to desired size. 

Add all ingredients and add more (or less) of any ingredient if you'd like more flavor!

P.S. some people add cilantro (ew) to their pico, so if you desire, add at least 1 tsp.

Have a Shana Tova! Happy New Year!