Ethiopian cuisine

One thing I have been super excited about is having our Wartburg international students cook for us.  I was especially excited about doing this with Rahel because Ethiopian food is much harder to make/come by, and I have some connections that I truly believe were divinely arranged.  Through a friend from church, I got teff flour, berbere and a very specialized pan, as well as a sour dough starter to make the staple food of the Ethiopian diet--injera.  It's a multiple day process, so I had Rahel do the first step before we left for Coralville on Tuesday. 

On Thursday afternoon we picked up "the gwil-els" (as Lincoln calls them).  This time it was Rahel and one friend.  After a quick stop at Fareway for meat, onions and jalapeno peppers, the girls spent almost two hours in the kitchen mixing and chopping and cooking.  We were all very disappointed when our injera did not turn out.  The girls made it exactly like they do at home.  After a call to my friend, Laurie, we tried an American adaptation, but it still didn't work.  I think we might have given up too soon.  I later spent some time doing some research online and am eager to try again.

The meat dish they made was spicy, but excellent.  The berbere sauce was a little too much for me.  Since the injera didn't turn out, I made some rice to eat like a stir-fry.  The girls made a sauce out of olive oil, red onions, tomato sauce and berbere to put on the rice like they do at home.  That was also delicious.  There wasn't enough time to make alecha wat, but you would really need injera to eat with it.

Trying new and exotic foods is a bit of a step for me, but it was fun.  Austin & the kids were good sports, although the kids mostly just ate the rice.  We had some nice dinner conversation and found out some really fascinating things about Ethiopian culture.  I look forward to Culture Week later this month and another attempt at injera in the future!