Kitty's Chinese Dumplings (Jiaozi)

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Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

The Asian theme continues on gourmet cubicle. After the success of my Japanese miso ramen recipe, it’s time for another Asian staple: Chinese dumplings, also known as jiaozi.

For a very long time the idea of making dumplings never really crossed my mind, mostly because I had a preconceived idea that they must be really difficult to make. Then I talked to my friend Minghui. I knew his family cooked, because he brought amazing dishes to work potlucks in the past. I told him about Cooking with Friends and asked him if he would teach me to cook a Chinese staple dish. 

He said yes, without thinking twice. When Chinese New Year rolled around, Minghiu invited me to celebrate with his friends and learn the secrets of making dumplings with his friend Kitty. He told me that they’d make traditional Chinese dishes, and that Kitty–Minghui’s good friend and neighbor—would show me the secrets to her famous dumplings. I was blown away (and a bit nervous) about making dumplings from scratch. Kitty’s mom, Lanxiang Yang, who was visiting from China, would be there as well, and according to Minghiu, she had mad dumpling-folding skills.

When I arrived at Mighui’s house, I was welcomed by his wife Jun Li, his super cute daughter Jennifer, Kitty, and Lanxiang. They were excited to share their recipe and traditions with me. Lanxiang was wearing traditional Chinese clothing, which set a celebratory tone. Even though she didn’t speak English at all, we were able to communicate with Kitty’s help and through signs. 

Lanxiang started by showing me how to make the dough. The ingredients were simple—water, flour, and salt—but the process was time-consuming and rather difficult. When I tried my hand on rolling out a wrapper, it was obvious to everyone that I wasn’t meant for this; the wrappers were all wonky and pretty much useless. Of course, Kitty and Lanxiang kneaded, cut, and rolled the wrappers so fast that it looked effortless, but that was just the result of years and years of experience. As a result, in my recipe, I recommend you buying the pre-packed wrappers to make your life a lot easier.

While I was observing the whole process, Kitty told me about a few Chinese gastronomical traditions. I found that these dumplings are specific to the northern part of China and that Shanghai also has a variation of them, but they are sweeter. I also found out that eating in Chinese culture is similar to many other cultures in that it is communal. They usually set up two tables: one for adults and another for children. On special occasions like holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, etc., they make dumpling along with a lot of other dishes. The rule of thumb is to make 10 dumplings per person, which adds up pretty quickly for a party of 15-20 people.

I also learned about the importance of the number 8 in Chinese culture. When hosting a dinner or family gathering, they start the feast by serving 8 cold appetizers (cured meats, salads, noodles, etc) followed by 8 warm plates (fish, dumplings, cumin lamb, double fried pork, etc.). The meal ends with fruits. Generally, the women are responsible for cooking and the men are in charge of cleaning. 

Although some men take pride in their cooking skills, Minghui was as much a novice dumpling maker as I was. We used the rule of 10 and determined that we needed to fold at least 130 dumplings. Lanxiang showed us at least four or five folding techniques, but they didn’t really stick to Lianxiang's amusement. She could pick up a wrapper that Kitty rolled out, put a spoonful of filling in the middle, and just like when a magician performs a trick, BAM! You got yourself a dumpling. Half an hour later, Lanxiang, Minghui, and I finished folding 147 dumplings (yes, I did count them all). Minghui and I contributed very little to the total number, as we were only able to successfully fold 10 to 15 in that time. The rest were all Lanxiang’s work of magic. Her hands were on autopilot, moving faster than a high-end folding machine, and she laughed all the while at Minghui’s and my inability to master dumpling folding.

After a few weeks I decided to try making them at home, and although it took me about an hour to make 30 dumplings, they were well worth it. My friend Maria (who you may remember from a previous Cooking with friends blog post) swears by them. She claims that these are the best dumplings she’s ever had, which means a lot, since she’s spend significant time in China. Try them, have fun with the folding, and don’t make a big deal out of the shape—they’ll taste fantastic regardless. Enjoy!

Kitty's Chinese Dumplings (Jiaozi)

Serves 6-8
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
 

Ingredients

Dumplings

  •  1 bunch of celery, roughly chopped (about 8-10 stalks)
  • 1 bunch green onions, roughly chopped
  • 1-inch ginger, crushed
  • 1 lb. ground pork
  • 4 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. ground white pepper
  • 1 ½ tsp. ground Sichuan pepper
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 lb. round dumpling wrappers (about 60-80 wrappers)

Dipping sauce

  • ¼ cup soy sauce
  • ¼ cup Zhenjiang vinegar
  •  1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
  • ½ inch ginger, peeled and grated
  • 1 tsp. chili oil (more for spicier sauce)

Instructions

  1. Start with the dipping sauce. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce with the vinegar, garlic, ginger, and chili oil. Stir and set aside.
  2. Coarsely chop the celery, green onions, and ginger, and then transfer them to a food processor. Pulse until they are finely chopped. Don’t overdo it!
  3. Remove the celery mix, wrap it in a clean kitchen towel, and squeeze it to remove the excess liquid.
  4.  In a large bowl, combine the ground pork with the finely chopped celery mix, salt, white pepper, Sichuan pepper, and olive oil. Using your hands, stir until the filling is well mixed.
  5. Holding a dumpling wrapper flat in your hand, place 1 ½ teaspoons of the filling in the center of the wrapper.
  6. Wet the edges of the wrapper and fold the dumpling in half to form a half-moon shape, pressing out the air as you seal the dumpling.
  7. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the 15-20 dumplings at a time and cook until they float to the surface or until the water starts foaming. Add half cup cold water, and wait until the water returns to a boil. Add another half cup cold water and cook until the water starts boiling again.
  8. Using a slotted spoon, remove the dumplings and transfer them to a platter. Repeat until you boiled all the dumplings.
  9. Serve the dumplings hot, with the sauce on the side.

Notes

  • There are several techniques to fold the dumplings. Look one up on YouTube if the instructions aren’t clear. Don’t sweat too much over making them look like at the restaurant—those guys are pros.

Juan Pablo's Chilean Alfajores

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Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

I miss travelling. I miss it a lot. I miss the excitement of being somewhere new. I miss the thrill of meeting new people: people I can relate to who have similar interests and values. People who are open to explore and discover.

Juan Pablo is one of those people: kind, humble, and genuinely curious about everything that surrounds him. In my previous blog post, I talked about the time I spent with him and his family in Vina del Mar. Feeling at home in another country on another continent is a once in a lifetime occurrence that many travelers never have the opportunity to experience, and I will never forget my time there.

Even though I met Juan Pablo for the first time during my trip in Chile, I felt as if I’d known him forever. His strong bond with his family was the first thing I noticed about him, perhaps because I could relate to that emotion. Although I live thousands of miles from my family, I still think often about our Sunday lunches, our weekend trips to our cabin at Mujdeni, our amazing holiday dinners, and the incredible spreads my mom and grandma put together every time we had guests. Whenever our family had visitors, we celebrated the special occasion just like Juan Pablo’s family did when I visited them. We celebrate friendship, and we do it by eating, drinking, sharing stories, and laughing.

Juan Pablo is the type of person everyone likes to be around: always happy, calm, and curious. His happiness and curiosity are especially genuine and contagious. While there, he asked me to sing him traditional songs from Romania and Hungary. I initially refused, as I am very aware of my horrible singing skills, but he wouldn’t give up until I sang him Romania’s national anthem. You know those awkward moments when they play the national anthem at major sport events (I’m thinking soccer here), and the cameras get too close to the players, and you hear them singing, and you cringe? Yeah.. that’s exactly how I felt. Fortunately, Juan Pablo enjoyed it, which made it less awkward.

We talked a lot about several topics. We discussed art, history, music, travels and, of course, food. As it turns out, Juan Pablo is a really good cook, and his cooking style is very similar to mine. Instead of following recipes, he prefers improvising and eye-balling. When I asked him to teach me to cook something that resonates with him and his culture, he replied alfajores without hesitation. These sandwich cookies are made all over South America and the South American people take a lot of pride in it. Although there are several variations to this dessert, the main ingredients are flour (or cornmeal), butter, sugar and dulce de leche.

Alfajores are his favorite type of dessert. Although he prefers them with fig jam filling, we agreed to stick to the traditional dulce de leche (manjar in Chile) version. Buen provecho!

Juan Pablo's Chilean Alfajores

Yields 12-15 sandwich cookies
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
 

Ingredients

  • 4 ½ oz. (130 g.) unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 4 ½ oz. (130 g.) vegetable shortening
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 5 ½ oz. (150 g.) sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 tsp. lemon zest (about half a lemon)
  • 7 oz. (200 g.) all-purpose flour
  • 10 ½ oz. (300 g.) corn starch
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 cup manjar (dulce de leche)
  • ½ Tbsp. milk
  • 1 cup grated coconu

Instructions

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 360F(180C) degrees.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix butter, shortening, yolks, sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon zest. Using a whisk or a hand mixer, beat until smooth.
  3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour and corn starch. Add the baking powder, and whisk until well combined.
  4. Add the egg mixture to the flour. Using your hand, gently knead the dough. Don’t overknead it- the dough has to be a bit crumbly.
  5. Sprinkle flour onto your work surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to 1/4-inch thick.
  6. Using a round cookie cutter (2 inches or less), cut out the cookies and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
  7. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Make sure to remove from the oven as soon as the cookies start browning.
  8. Let the cookies cool. In the meantime, combine manjar (dulce de leche) and milk in a small bowl and whisk until well combined.
  9. Spread about 1 teaspoon of dulce de leche over one cookie and top with another one. Lightly press to spread more evenly.
  10. Roll alfajores in coconut. Serve at room temperature.

Notes

  • Sifting the flour will make the dough lighter and fluffier.

 

 

Hanna's Ethiopian Beef Tibs

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Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

It’s Cooking with friends time again, folks! I know it’s been a while since my last blog post, but I’ve been making some changes in my life lately, which have kept me busy both in and out of the kitchen. I recently started taking photography classes, and it feels oddly satisfying to go to school and do homework again. I’m also dedicating more time to recipe development and photography. Writing, on the other hand, has been really tough. I found myself on a dry spell lately, but I’m hoping that my upcoming Chilean journey and backpacking trip through Patagonia will take care of that. With all these new things happening in my life, I really value the timeless tradition of communal cooking. Friends, food and drinks always make me realize how lucky I am. Speaking of amazing friends, you probably remember Ame and Hanna from one of my older blog posts. They are back with yet another amazing Ethiopian staple: Beef Tibs.

Ame and Hanna are a well-respected and highly regarded couple in the Ethiopian community, and they were some of my first friends to feature on the blog with their delicious Ethiopian Lentils also known as Misir Wot. The post was a total success and is still one of the most visited blog posts in the life of gourmetcubicle to date. The best part was that people from the Ethiopian community reached out to me via email, commending the recipe and giving me props for the way I portrayed Ethiopian cuisine and traditions in the few lines I wrote. 

There was one funny incident during the last blog post with Ame and Hanna. Whenever I write a Cooking with friends post, I don’t let my friends see the story until it goes live. It allows me to be honest about how I feel about their culture, our friendship and, of course, the food we are cooking. Putting those thoughts on paper is my way of saying thank you for the time and effort they spend on sharing their knowledge with me. Not everyone reacts the same way to what I write though. Guy thought my portrayal of him as a stubborn perfectionist was hilarious, while Maria felt a tug at her heartstrings because of my comments on our friendship.

With Ame, though, it was a completely different experience. As soon as the blog post went live, Ame told me that the title should be changed. The TITLE? The recipe was initially named Ame’s Ethiopian Lentils (Misir Wot), which was completely wrong, because the recipe belonged to Hanna. He felt like it would be unfair to take credit for his wife’s recipe. I immediately changed it to Ame and Hanna’s Ethiopian Lentils, even though a few people had already shared the recipe on social media. “I should’ve known better than that!” I thought to myself. I’m familiar with Ame’s perfectionist personality. As a matter of fact, I’m in touch with that emotion - I’m an engineer, too.

Although both Hanna and Ame are great cooks, Hanna has that special talent of making everything related to cooking look easy. She’s always calm and in control of the situation. While she was cooking, measuring, and introducing me to the secrets of Ethiopian cuisine, Hanna was also talking to Ame and looking after Nathan, the youngest of their 3 little munchkins. She told me about the importance of berbere - a medley of chili, garlic, ginger, ajwain and a few other spices, and how this spice defines their cuisine.

Misir wot (Ethiopian lentils), Doro wot (Ethiopian chicken stew), Gomen (Ethiopian collard greens) and Beef Tibs were all served on a perfectly plated injera bread.  Although all the dishes prepared by Hanna and Ame were excellent, I found the beef tibs to be my personal favorite. Initially Ame and Hanna taught me a recipe that wasn’t using berbere. The flavors were good and balanced, but the addition of berbere made the gravy more flavorful and richer. It’s my preferred way of eating beef tibs because even after I run out of meat, I can dip the injera in the gravy. Enjoy!

HANNA'S ETHIOPIAN BEEF TIBS

Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp vegetable oil (or Ethiopian niter kibbeh)
  • 1½ cups medium yellow onion, finely chopped (1/2 medium-sized onion)
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1½ Tbsp berbere
  • 2 Tbsp water
  • 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
  • 1 lb beef (eye of round roast), cut into ½ inch cubes
  • 1 tsp iodine salt
  • 2 jalapeños, deseeded and sliced
  • 3 sprigs fresh rosemary

Instructions

  1. In a nonstick skillet heat oil over high heat. When the oil easily slides across the pan, add the onions and garlic. Cook for about 4 minutes until the onions become translucent. Stir often so the garlic doesn’t burn.
  2. Add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  3. Sprinkle with berbere and 2 tablespoons of water reduce the heat to medium-high and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring often.
  4. Add beef and mix well until the meat cubes are well coated with gravy. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the meat is well cooked.If the gravy is too thick you can add another tablespoon of water.
  5. Add salt, jalapenos, and rosemary. Give it a last stir and let it cook for 3 more minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning. If the gravy isn't spicy enough you can add more berbere.
  6. Serve beef tibs on injera bread with a side of Misir Wot (Ethiopian lentils) and gomen (Ethiopian collard greens – coming soon).

Notes

  • The heat level of the dish is dependent on the amount of berbere you add. For a milder version reduce the amount to 1 tablespoon. For extra spicy double the amount of berbere and don't completely remove the seeds from the jalapeños.

Maria's Snow Crescents (Hókifli)

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Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

“Cooking with friends” blog posts are quickly turning into one of my favorite activities.  It’s so refreshing and exciting for me to go into my friends’ kitchens and cook with them! Each experience is unique, and I’m able to discover a side of my friends that I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to see. Some are strict recipe followers, and some are improvising adventurers. Seeing the way they work in the kitchen and learning from them while they tell me their stories always fills me with joy and gratitude. Add a drink into the mix and it feels like all your problems have melted away. Friends, food and drinks connect people from all backgrounds and walks of life, and through them, many of the world’s problems are solvable.

Maria is one of those friends who’s always been there for me. Whether she’s taking care of my dog, Popsi, while I’m away travelling, giving me advice during hard times, or just listening to me, she never disappoints. I’ve known Maria since I lived in Hungary but we became close friends once we each transferred to Austin with our jobs. Maria moved to Austin in 2010, and when I arrived in Austin in 2011, I appreciated having someone who spoke my native language to help me settle in. She understood and helped me through many of the struggles I encountered as a foreigner in a country with a culture that is so different than what I was accustomed to.

When I asked Maria about having a guest post on gourmetcubicle, her eyes lit up, but then she shyly said no. It took some convincing to get Maria to agree to cook with me. She initially felt that none of her recipes were special enough, which is hardly the truth. She’s an extraordinary cook. When Maria brings me her homemade Hungarian dishes, I always finish them in one sitting. Not only is her cooking phenomenal, but Maria always seems to know when I need some home cooking. I remember that when I got back from Cambodia last year, a bowl of stuffed cabbage rolls was waiting in the refrigerator with a note that said: “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy the cabbage rolls. The sour cream is on the top shelf.” Every year on the first of January, Maria invites me over to eat Hungarian lentil stew. It’s a tradition in Hungary to serve lentils at the beginning of the New Year as they symbolize prosperity and wealth.

Maria is creative and artistic both inside and outside the kitchen. Right now she’s organizing her wedding, and she does it with so much calmness and grace that I wonder why this isn’t her full-time job. She’s designing everything from the invitations and decorations to the flowers and gifts. Everything is handmade with a touch of her own good taste. She and my other good friend Monika are creating things that are worthy of an Etsy editor pick. I hope they’ll start their own business sometime soon because the world could benefit from their creative talent. 

But back to Maria’s cooking. She eventually agreed to share a recipe with me. She showed me how to make snow crescents, called hókifli in Hungarian. These tasty desserts were Maria’s grandmother’s specialty. Maria regaled me with stories of her grandma as we cooked together. She told me how her grandmother always made hókiflis, how they always turned out perfectly, and how they became her favorite childhood dessert. I hadn’t tried too many snow crescents during my childhood because my grandma made other desserts (like Zserbó Cake (Gerbaud Cake)), but once I tried them at Maria’s, I instantly fell in love with them. They are not too sweet and not too heavy on filling. They are a tasty treat on their own, but eating them with your coffee will make you think you’re in a nice little café somewhere in Europe. Enjoy!

Maria's Snow Crescents (Hókifli)

Yields 24 pieces
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Inactive time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 14oz (400g) all-purpose flour (plus more for kneading and rolling)
  • 3.5oz (100g) white sugar
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 sticks (200g) unsalted butter (at room temperature) + 1 TBS for greasing the cookie sheets
  • 3.5oz (100ml) whole-milk (at room temperature)

Filling

  • 7oz (200g) ground walnuts (replace with pecans for a more mellow flavor)
  • 3.5oz (100g) powdered sugar
  • .5oz (30ml)  spiced rum
  • 3-4 tsp fresh lemon zest (about 1 medium-sized lemon)

Sugar Dip

  • 3.5oz (100g) powdered sugar
  • .32oz (9g) vanilla sugar (see notes for homemade vanilla sugar) 

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400F (200C) degrees.
  2. In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar and baking soda. Using a whisk mix until well combined.
  3. Using your hands, crumble the butter into the flour. Make sure there aren't any large chunks of butter in the mixture. Slowly add milk and start kneading. Knead for about 5 minutes, sprinkling the dough with flour if it's too wet. Knead until the dough doesn't stick to the walls of the bowl. 
  4. When done, cut the dough in half and shape each half into a softball-sized sphere. Sprinkle with flour, cover with plastic wrap and let them rest in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile in a medium sized bowl whisk walnuts, sugar, lemon zest and rum together until they reach the consistency of thick paste. Don't be shy; add more rum until the filling holds together.
  6. Sprinkle flour on a flat surface and lay a dough ball in the middle. Using your hands, flatten  the dough ball into a disk shape. Use a rolling to pin roll it until it's about 1/5 inches thick.
  7. Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, slice the rolled dough into 12 slices. Repeat for the other dough ball.
  8. Add a teaspoon of filling to the wide end of each slice. Roll the slices from the outside towards the inside (from the wide end towards the narrow end). They should look like mini-croissants or crescents.
  9. Repeat steps 6-8 for the other dough ball.
  10. Grease a cookie sheet with butter and place crescents on it. Put them in the oven and bake for 17 minutes. Remove from oven when they start browning at the edges (the rest should be white).
  11. Set snow crescents aside and let them cool for one minute. Roll each snow crescent in the powdered sugar mix (they should still be hot when you do this). They break easily, so handle them gently. Serve alone or with coffee.

Notes

  • To make homemade vanilla sugar, fill a  mason jar with sugar, about 3/4 full. Cut a vanilla bean pod in half lengthwise and place both halves in the jar. Close the lid and shake vigorously. Let it rest for a bit et voilà, you've got yourself vanilla sugar! The longer you you rest the mixture the more intense the vanilla flavor will be. Refill the jar with fresh sugar every time you're running low. 
  • If you overcook the crescents a bit, don't worry. They will still be pretty good, but more crumbly. I personally prefer them moist, but if you want them crumbly, cook for 20 minutes instead of 17.
  • Keep leftover crescents in a sealed Ziploc bag. This will keep them from drying out. 

Ame and Hanna's Ethiopian Lentils (Misir Wot)

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Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

Misir Wot (lentils stew), Doro Wot (chicken stew), Gomen (Ethiopian collard green) and Beef Tibs served on injera bread.

Misir Wot (lentils stew), Doro Wot (chicken stew), Gomen (Ethiopian collard green) and Beef Tibs served on injera bread.

Working for a large multinational company is not always as bad as some people make it out to be. Of course the 9 to 5 schedule, the politics, and the bureaucracy are annoying and exhausting, but there are a lot of perks that counterbalance these obvious disadvantages. Things like access to the latest technologies, working with the smartest people in the industry and cultural diversity are just a few that come to my mind. By far the favorite part of my work is getting to interact with people from all over the world and learning about their culture. When working in such environments you inevitably get to learn about what to avoid doing when interacting with others and you learn to be more tolerant. You learn not to take things personally and to accept that cultural differences exist and they are completely fine. For example, just because Europeans like myself are more direct doesn’t mean we are rude. That’s just who we are and each culture has its norm. We are different and that’s what makes this world such an amazing place.

I've got to meet Ame on my first day of work here in Austin. He was the one who introduced me to the small Romanian group of engineers that had already been working in town. My first impression of him was great. I knew he understood the struggle of moving to a completely new place and knew exactly how hard it was to leave everything behind and start from scratch. Then came the first project we worked on together. He was my mentor. He annoyed me with all kinds of questions that I thought were insignificant and at one point I thought he was just picking on me, but then I realized that he was just like me: a perfectionist. He wanted me to understand why some things were happening the way they were. Basically he was trying to make me a better engineer. Then he moved to a different group and I was pretty sad to see him leave. The sadness didn’t last too long though, because soon thereafter I joined the same department. Even though now we are in different groups, we still interact on a daily basis and every morning when I walk to my desk I see him greeting me with his big smile, asking me about my love life.

I’ve known Ame for four years now. The two words that always come to mind when I think of him are smiling and curious. His joy is contagious and no matter how bad your day is he’ll brighten it. He is also genuinely interested in everything- from work to your personal life. Ever since I started my blog, Ame has been one of my most loyal readers. If I was away and skipped a post he would walk over to my desk and remind me that I need to write. When I told him about my idea of starting a monthly series called Cooking with Friends he got more excited than me about it. He told me he would share a few of his family’s recipes with me and have me  over to his house for lunch so he could introduce me to his boys.

He is the one who introduced me to Ethiopian cuisine. He took me to his favorite Ethiopian restaurant and introduced me to Winnie, an equally happy and smiley Ethiopian lady who happens to have the best Ethiopian restaurant in Austin called A Taste of Ethiopia. We went there for lunch and we talked about the Ethiopian way of living. I learned about how important religion and family are in their culture. He told me the story of how he met Hanna, his beautiful wife. When he saw her for the first time at a church event he knew she is the one before even talking to her. I was blown away by his sincerity and I could see that he was so proud of that moment. Hanna and Ame now have three extremely cute boys Ezra, Luke and Nathan. Ame and Hanna shared their family's Misir Wot and Beef Tibs recipes with me. For now I’ll only post the Misir Wot one, but keep an eye on the blog because their Beef Tibs recipe is also going to feature soon.

Ezra having beef tibs and misir wot

Luke prefers gomen with "white" (sour cream)

If Hungarians have paprika, Chinese have 5 spices, Japanese have shichimi togarachi, Ethiopians have berbere as their most commonly used spice. It’s the flavor backbone of Ethiopian cuisine- a combination of chili, garlic, ginger, ajwain and a medley of other spices. It has a very specific and intense flavor and, if used in large quantities, will make your dish extremely spicy. It’s easy to recognize it due to its bright red color and fiery taste.

Ethiopian food culture is defined by hospitality and abundance, and Ame, Hanna and the kids made us realize that from the moment we stepped foot in their home. Ethiopian cuisine is not as fancy as let’s say French or Japanese. It’s more of a home-style cooking just like my own Eastern European cuisine. What Ethiopian cuisine excels at is transforming simple ingredients like lentils, spinach and cheap cuts of meat into elevated dishes that seem a lot more complicated to cook than they actually are. Ethiopian cuisine is built around heavily season meats (beef, chicken and lamb) and vegetable stews called wot served on Ethiopia’s national bread called injera. Injera is a spongy flatbread made out of fermented Teff grains. It resembles sourdough bread in flavor, only that it’s a lot more sour.

Ame and Hanna in traditional Ethiopian clothing

Ame and Hanna in traditional Ethiopian clothing

Ethiopian food is served atop injera on a platter and is meant to be shared. A few dishes are served at a time and are eaten with your hands using pieces of injera to scoop up each bite. This makes eating a very intimate experience. Ame and his family made the experience even more interesting by serving us Ethiopian coffee at the end of the feast. His family has a farm in Ethiopia and every time he goes home he brings some of the best coffee beans his family grows. Hope you enjoy Ame and Hanna’s recipe!

Ame and Hanna's Ethiopian Lentils (Misir Wot)

Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed
  • 2 TBS vegetable oil (or Ethiopian niter kibbeh) 
  • 1/2 medium-sized onion, finely chopped  (about 1 cup)
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 TBS berbere (more for spicier dish)
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Place lentils in a small bowl and rinse vigorously with cold tap water 2 or three times. Cover with water and let them soak for about 10 minutes.
  2. In a medium sauce pan heat oil over medium-high heat. When the oil easily slides across the pan add the onions and garlic. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes until the onions become translucent.
  3. Add 1/4 cup of water and cook for another 3 minutes stirring occasionally.
  4. Add berbere, stir well and cook for 5 more minutes. Add a tablespoon of water if needed.
  5. Drain the lentils and add them to the pan along with the salt and the rest of the water. 
  6. Bring to a boil, cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Let it simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring every now and then. You're done!

Notes

  • Rinsing the lentils under cold water helps reduce the likelihood of heartburn.
  • According to Ame, the traditional Ethiopian way of sautéing the onions is by first cooking them with a bit of water. The oil is added when the onions are halfway cooked. We tried the recipe both ways and found that sautéing the onions in oil gives the best flavor.
  • Berbere and injera can be found in ethnic stores. Injera can be stored in the refrigerator for a week. It also, reheats well in the microwave.