Ethiopian style chicken stew

Totally inauthentic, but delicious. We were craving Ethiopian food and there isn't an Ethiopian restaurant anywhere near here. Note to self: don't try making injera bread again.

The chicken is the one at the back.

500g boneless chicken thighs, cut into biggish chunks
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp ghee (or sunflower oil with some butter)
2 big onions, minced finely (use the food processor for speed)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp berbere spice mix (or to taste)
100ml white wine
1 tsp honey
250ml chicken stock
salt (may not need if using salted stock)

1. Marinate the chicken in the lemon juice and some salt for at least 30 minutes.
2. Melt the ghee or oil/butter mixture then very gently saute the onions for 15 minutes or so until very soft but not burnt.
3.Add the garlic and ginger and berbere seasoning and saute for 10 minutes very gently.
4. Add the chicken, stock, wine and honey and bring to the boil.
5. Cover and simmer  gently for 30 - 40 minutes until the chicken is tender

Ethiopian style Red Lentils - Misir Wot

good glug of ghee/oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 or 3 tomatoes, chopped
3 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp berbere spice, or more to taste
300g red lentils
700ml veg stock
salt (may not need depending on how salty the stock is)

1. Saute the onion in ghee or oil until soft and golden, not burnt.
2. Add the garlic and simmer for a moment or two.
3. Add the tomatoes and tom puree, and the stock and stir it all together.
4. Stir in the lentils and cook for 20 - 30 mins or so until the lentils are cooked and becoming mushy.

Ideally this would be served with injera bread, some other Ethiopian dishes, such as collard greens, beef curry, chicken curry and fresh cheese. I managed the chicken curry and I even made some fresh cheese, but the bread was a disaster. We ate it with rice, which was still delicious, but I love injera bread.

successful cheese

unsuccessful injera

Scones

I've tried lots of different recipes for scones. This one was from Rodda's, the clotted cream people. They should know what they're talking about. They were pretty good. I didn't have buttermilk, so I used a dollop, probably 2 tsp or so, of natural yoghurt made up to 150ml with the milk. Vanilla is down as one of the ingredients, but I didn't put it in. This is half quantity - there weren't many of us eating them.

225g SR flour
50g butter (I actually used Stork)
pinch salt
35g sugar
150ml buttermilk (or mixture of milk and a couple of spoons of natural yoghurt or sour cream)

Stir the salt into the flour, then rub the fat into the flour.

Stir in the sugar.

Mix in the milk until just combined - don't overwork it or your scones will be leathery. I found this made quite a wet mixture and added a touch more flour. The scones were hard to roll, but did come out deliciously light.

Shape into a ball, roll out to about 2cm thick, then use a pastry cutter to cut out rounds to the size you want.

Put the scones on a greased baking tray,  brush with beaten egg,  or with milk, or melted butter. I like to sprinkle a little sugar on the top at that point if I'm using milk or butter. Bake at 200C in a fan oven for about 10 to 15 mins until golden.

Serve with jam and clotted cream. I will leave the order you spread them on up to you.

Baked Spiralized Onion and Carrot Bhajis

Fuzzy picture

These were surprisingly good, considering bhajis are normally deep fried and very oily.

1 large chunky carrot, (around 200g) scrubbed and spiralized, no need to peel

0.5 large onion, sliced

1 egg, beaten

50g flour, preferably gram flour

spices to taste - I used a good shake of ground cumin, some Madras curry powder, some tikka curry powder, some turmeric, some hot paprika, garlic powder and salt

sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees c

Stir together the flour and spices. I didn't have gram flour, so I used half Teff flour, left over from a disastrous attempt to make Ethiopian injera bread, and half plain wholemeal flour.

Stir in the beaten egg and a splash of water and mix into a thick batter.

Toss in the onion and carrot and give it a good mix.

Dollop 8 lumps of it onto a greased, preferably lined, baking tray and drizzle the oil over the top. We found that the smaller shallower ones were nicer as they crisped up better than the fat ones!

Bake for about 15 mins until crispy, turning over about 10 mins into the cooking time to get the bottoms crispy.

Serve with a raita made from yoghurt, mint and cucumber with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Carrot Bran Muffins

I have been known to call these 'Worthy but Dull Muffins'. I hadn't made them for several years, but then remembered them when there was a thing on the news this week about eating more fibre. These have plenty of fibre and they are surprisingly yummy when eaten fresh from the oven. Later the same day they're still ok, but the next day a bit meh.

5 oz wholemeal flour (or a mixture of plain and wholemeal)
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp bicarb
pinch salt
2oz All Bran cereal
2 oz raisins
1.5 oz brown sugar
1 oz margarine or butter
2 eggs
150ml milk
4 oz grated raw carrot
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.5 tsp mixed spice (more if you like it)

Preheat oven to 190 C. Mix together flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt, as well as the bran, raisins and spices.

In another bowl cream together the marg and sugar, beat in the eggs and milk, then fold in the flour mixture.

Finally stir in the carrot. If the mixture looks very wet, add a bit more flour until you get a sponge batter type consistency.

Spoon into muffin tins, preferably lined with silicone cases (they seem to stick to the paper ones), and bake for around 15 - 20 mins until a skewer comes out clean.

Eat on the day of baking, or they really do become Worthy but Dull muffins.