Ethiopian food comes Haile recommended

Finger food: a mixed platter at Hamer Ethiopia restaurant, Finsbury Park. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

The Beatles said it all: John, Paul, Ringo and George inadvertently gave a name to the first near-human in history. In 1974 anthropologists who located and reconstructed the female skeleton of a hominid who lived over three million years ago, rejoiced, in their encampment in Hadar in the Awas Valley, to a euphoric tape of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’; hence her name.

Our Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, had her origins in Ethiopia all those years ago, while Hackney citizens were mere blobs of ectoplasm in the primeval ooze of stream
and swamp.

Later, the great kingdom of Ethiopia, with its unparalleled wealth, its powerful rulers, magnificent scenery and amazing natural resources, was renowned for its jewels and rare perfumes. A sophisticated cuisine evolved to match this splendour, and even now, despite the tangled politics of its recent past, a search for Ethiopian food is for us an insight into a strange and wonderful history.

This cuisine is so far beneath the radar of ‘fine dining’ that it’s hard to locate all the places nearby where it can be sampled, but once you
know what to look for, there is much to enjoy.

Pearl of great price

The foundation of an Ethiopian meal is injera, a wondrous thing that is probably the most visually unprepossessing food ever invented, a sludge-coloured, floppy, slightly clammy pancake, with a porous sponge-like texture, but enough tensile strength and pliability to act as wrap, shovel, spoon, and mopper-upper.

A batter is made from the fermented dough of a flour made from teff, the seed of a grass found only in Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is
cooked on a metal disk about
50cm across.

Gillian Riley. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

This forms the base on which the components of a meal are served; the various items are plonked on this absorbent layer, which soaks up the juices, and can also be torn into receptacles for mouthfuls of the different thick stews, wat, or zigni.

Injera is nutritionally a pearl of great price, with no gluten whatsoever, but an impressive range of amino acids, vitamins, calcium, minerals, protein, carbohydrates and fibre. Its enigmatic flavour, due to days of fermentation, is neither sour nor acid, but has a distinct tang, a tasty catalyst for the flavour of the spicy meat and vegetables eaten with it.

But injera is not just the edible basis of an Ethiopian meal, its presence on a huge wide platter, round which dining companions are seated, is symbolic of the bonds of friendship and solidarity that bind family and nation together
in harmony.

The act of selecting a tasty morsel in a wrap of injera and feeding it to a dear friend is a way of demonstrating and reinforcing affection and loyalty. The food has evolved as an expression of this, and we are fortunate to be able to join in such a benign way of eating here in north-east London.

Spice and veg

Vegetables are not mere ‘sides’ but an important item in the diet of the main Ethiopian religions, which have many non-meat days in the year. So vegetable stews are complex and delicious, holding their own with the meaty ones.

Dried pulses and lentils, often spiced as they are dried, are cooked in rich dishes, with more flavouring from one of the many different spice mixtures. Spinach or chard is often combined with lentils, cabbage gets a crisp pungency. Sometimes cheese is added, but every vegetable dish has its distinct characteristics.

The spice mixtures used in Ethiopian cuisine are not dissimilar to North Africa and the Middle East, but have their own personalities, mainly from the use of certain items like fenugreek and a rare kind of cardamom, and of course chilli, but with moderation; berebere spice powder is one of the best known, or awaze, a red chilli paste. You could use harissa, or some of the Turkish tomato and chilli pastes, but the effect is not quite the same. Here is a tired woman in a hurry’s cheat:

Zigni Wat

400g good quality minced beef
2 or 3 red onions, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons of Turkish chilli and red pepper paste
Fenugreek, cardamom and black cumin, ground together

Ginger, chopped

Garlic, chopped

Spiced butter

Salt to taste

Cook the onion slowly in a heavy bottomed pan until soft and just changing colour. Add the ginger and garlic, then the spice paste and the ground spices. Put in a little water and stir well. Then put in the meat and cook gently until done

But there are two other factors:   the ‘dry’ cooking of ingredients at the start of preparation, where onions, peeled and finely chopped, are cooked slowly without water or fat, until soft and slightly coloured, and then added to the rest of the ingredients.

Meat too, is given the same treatment. Unctuousness and flavour are imparted by the another magical element, spiced butter, which is added as a flavouring in the course of cooking, not used as a frying medium. Clarified butter is simmered with ginger, garlic and chopped red onion, and a mixture of herbs and spices, then cooled and strained. Again, there is no substitute for this, but it doesn’t take too long to do.

Kale and Onion Gomen

This is a mild, lightly spiced vegetable dish. Any green vegetable, like spinach, kale, cavolo nero, would do, adapting the cooking time of the greens. The spices are optional, and need not be intrusive.

1 kilo kale, washed and tough
stems removed

1 large red onion, peeled and chopped

salt to taste

2 cloves of garlic, chopped fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 or 2 hot green peppers, deseeded and thinly sliced cardomom, cloves, allspice (to taste)

Ground spiced butter or olive oil

Cook the kale in a little water until soft, drain but keep the water, and chop. Cook the onions as explained above, taking care not to scorch them.

When soft and slightly browned, add the kale, garlic, ginger and stir well together, adding some of the cooking water if it seems dry, and salt to taste. Cook until everything is nice and soft, then season with the spices and butter or oil and cook a little bit more.