Saturday, January 10, 2015

Ethiopian Christmas


This year we celebrated Ethiopian Christmas by making our most extravagant Ethiopian meal yet. I have successfully made a couple of Ethiopian main dishes but have failed miserably at making injera (the spongy, fermented flat bread).


To encourage me on this culinary journey, C.O. bought me a special pan with a tight fitting lid along with a cookbook with very detailed instructions on how to prepare injera. I had to order some of the ingredients online but was finally ready to bring a little of Ethiopia to Alaska.


The dough mixture of teff and whole wheat flour fermented for three days before it was time to cook it up. I had a few problems getting it off the griddle but overall it looked and tasted close to what we remember having in Ethiopia.


We made four dishes: misir wot (lentil stew), doro wat (chicken stew), t'ibs w'et (beef stew) and a salad and we drank mango and avocado smoothies like we had at cafes in Ethiopia.


The super fun, up-for-anything Miller family joined us for dinner.
We all ate with our hands using the injera to scoop up our food.


Harold heard that it was customary to feed people directly from your hand if you feel especially close to them. Michael wasn't quite ready to move their relationship to the next level however.


The kids weren't too sure what to make of the Ethiopian food but they were pretty good sports about the whole experience.


And finally, the very special Ethiopian princess that has made our lives so much richer. 


Merry Ethiopian Christmas
or is it
Happy Ethiopian Christmas?
. . . we're not really sure.

~AnnMarie


4 comments:

srhcb said...

"xoşbəxt Milad" (happy Christmas) is the closest I can come up with. Merry" Christmas translates more like Hilarious, which it might well be, but I don't think that's the common sentiment?

srhcb said...

PS: "Mən robot deyiləm!" is "I'm not a robot" in Ethiopia!

Anonymous said...

Looks like a wonderful meal and great experience.

James and Charity said...

Did you order your teff from Idaho? :) I hear it grows well in the Snake River Plain. ;)

Charity