There were only 2 options on the menu – vegetarian or meat. After we’d washed our hands with water poured over us by a waiter from an elaborate silver jug, they would bring out a huge injera (a slightly sour, lemony pancake) with neat piles of different stews spaced out on top. You’d just get one injera to share between you – the more people the bigger the pancake! I love sharing food, especially when there’s lots to go round, and it was a perfect way to eat with friends.

I’ve yet to find an Ethiopian restaurant in the UK, so if you see a good one please let me know. However I have got a couple of recipes for wat (stew) and injera.  They don’t come out nearly as well as the restaurant but still taste pretty good.

I’m currently experimenting with going vegetarian again but Matt can’t survive without meat occasionally so my latest attempt included a Doro Wat (chicken) and a Vegetable Wat. I combined two different recipes to make these – one for Doro Wat from a beautiful book called the African Kitchen by Josie Stow and Jan Baldwin, and the World Food Cafe book by Chris and Carolyn Caldicott.

The most important ingredient in any wat is berbere paste, recipe below.  You are also supposed to use Niter Kibbeh, a sort of spiced, clarified butter.  I’ve never actually bothered to make this and just replace it with butter and extra spices.  There are some niter kibbeh recipes online if you are keen.

Part 1: Make the Berbere Paste

Ingredients:

• 4 cardamon pods
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 0.5 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 2 cloves
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 cm/0.5 inch root ginger
• 3 tbsp red wine
• 7 dried red chillis
• 4 tsp ground paprika
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• Ground black pepper
• Sunflower oil
• Salt
• Sterilized jar + label

This looks complicated, but it makes quite a lot of paste, which will keep for about 6 months.  You can also do this well in advance of making the Wat.

1. Toast the cardamon, coriander, fenugreek and cloves on a dry frying pan over a low-medium heat for a few minutes until fragrant.  Then transfer to a pestle and mortar and grind to a powder.
2. Put the onion, garlic and ginger into a food processor with the toasted spices, 0.5 tbsp of salt, and blend.  Slowly add the wine as you blend.
3. Toast the paprika, cayenne, some black pepper, the nutmeg and cinnamon with 1 tsp salt in a dry saucepan, stirring constantly until fragrant.
4. Remove from the pan from the heat, add the onion-spice mixture, and gradually stir in 310ml/11floz of water.
5. Place over a low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 10-15 minutes.
6. Transfer the mixture to a sterilized jar, pressing down to remove any air pockets.  Allow to cool.
7. Cover the spice paste with oil, put the lid on and most importantly put a label on the front saying Berbere Paste and when you made it. (I always miss this step and end up with lots of jars of nondescript pastes in the back of the fridge that I’m too scared to use).  Store in the fridge for up to 6 months.

It really is worth preparing the spices properly like this, rather than just adding them direct to the stew.

Part 2: Making the Wat

Serves 2

• 2 tbsp Niter Kibbeh (or butter)
• 1 onion, very finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 inch of fresh ginger, grated
• 4 cardomom pods
• 1.5 inch cinnamon stick
• 1 clove
• 0.5 tsp fenugreek seeds
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 2 tbsp berbere paste
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 4 tbsp red wine

And for doro wat (chicken):

• 2 chicken drumsticks or thighs (with the bone and skin).  Pat the chicken dry with kitchen towel and rub all over with lemon juice and salt.  Cover and leave to marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.
• 2 boiled eggs

Or for the vegetable wat:

• Range of cubed or chopped vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, courgettes, green beans, spring greens etc
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 100ml vegetable stock

Both Wats start with the same process:

1. Put the onions in a large casserole dish over a low heat without any oil. Stir constantly until they are soft.  If they start to stick remove the dish from the heat for a short while.
2. Add the niter kebbeh or butter.  When it starts to splutter add the garlic, ginger, cardamon, cinnamon, fenugreek and nutmeg, stirring constantly.
3. Add the berbere and paprika, stir and cook for 2 minutes.



4. Pour in the wine and 185ml/6.5floz water, then bring to the boil, stirring regularly.
5. Boil until the liquid reaches the consistency of double cream.

At this point the two recipes diverge.

2a. Doro Wat (chicken)

1. Remove the chicken from the lemon juice marinade and pat dry.  Add the pieces to the simmering sauce. Make sure each piece is coated on all sides and then cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Prick the boiled eggs all over with a fork and add to the chicken – making sure they are coated all over in sauce.
3. Cover and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until chicken is tender.

2b. Vegetable Wat

1. Add all the vegetables to the simmering sauce and mix well.
2. Simmer for 10 minutes with the lid off.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes and stock and simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. Add more water if needed.

3. Making the injera

While the Wats are simmering, you can get the injera ready.  These are large savoury pancakes that you use to scoop up the stew.

Ingredients (for 2 hungry people):

• 300g/10.5 oz self-raising flour
• 75g/2.5oz wholemeal flour
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 250 ml/ 18floz soda water – it is really important to use soda water not tap water

Method:

1. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Gradually beat in the soda water and 0.5 litres plain water until you have a thin, smooth batter.
3. Heat a crepe pan/large frying pan until really hot.
4. Add a little vegetable oil and coat pan.
5. Pour in a ladleful of batter and swirl it round to form a thin layer like a pancake.
6. Cook until bubbles appear all over the surface, then turn over and cook for 2-3 minutes on the other side.



7. Place the cooked injera on a plate and keep warm.  Putting the plate over a saucepan half full of water over a low heat is a good way to do this.

4. Eat!

Wat tastes best eaten with your hands. Rip off a piece of injera and use it wrap up some stew and sauce.

As we were already being decadent we decided to go the whole hog and have a full 3 course meal.  Here is the menu:

Homemade Onion Bread Rolls

—–

Smoked Donnington Trout with Herb Blinis and Chive Crème Fraiche

—–

Lamb and Apricot Casserole with Lamb from Home Farm Bredons Norton
Dauphinoise Potato
French Beans in Red Onion
Glazed Chantenay Carrots

—–

Caramelised Lemon Tart with Raspberry Sorbet and Raspberry Coulis

—–

Homemade Chocolates

Everything came neatly packaged with clear instructions for heating and serving up. Despite being quite a complex meal it was really easy and fun to serve up.

For the starter we arranged the blinis on plates…

Added the smoked trout which we drizzled with lemon oil…

And finally topped it off with chive creme fraiche and parsley. Despite being a simple, and quite traditional starter, this was absolutely delicious and a cut above any similar dishes I’ve had in the past.

The main was even simpler. Our appetites had been whetted now and I’m afraid it wasn’t restaurant quality presentation – the potatoes, carrots, beans and casserole were just heaped onto our plates.

James tries to use local ingredients wherever possible, and this lamb was from the nearby Home Farm at Overbury. All the dishes were really tasty, but I felt the rich potatoes and carrots were slightly over the top for my taste. However, the casserole was gorgeous, with the lamb just melting in your mouth.

The quantities of food were very generous and there was enough casserole left for another 2-3 meals. After a big main course, my parents wondered about splitting the desserts and just having half a lemon tart each.

Matt and I quickly squashed that idea though as the tarts looked so good.

There were little cases to serve the raspberry sorbet in, with spares in case we messed up, or anyone was feeling greedy!

I love making lemon tart (and eating it!) as it is surprisingly simple but looks very fancy. I don’t think mine will taste the same now though, and I might need to invest in a blow torch so I can get the top nicely caramelised. The best thing about the dessert though was the sorbet, which was fantastic. I never tend to eat sorbet as it doesn’t seem like value for money in a dessert to me, but it was the perfect way to finish the meal – light but very intense raspberry flavours.

At about £25 a head for a 3 course meal, this was very good value for the amount and quality of food provided, and a nice alternative to eating out or getting takeaway.

James also has a great blog where he posts some of his latests experiments and inventions.

You need:
* 160g of basic savoury bread sponge – there’s plenty of recipes for this on the web.
* 120g plain white flour
* 40g stoneground flour
* 75g water
* pinch of salt
* about 10 ml olive oil

Mix all the above together, knead until smooth and leave to rise for an hour.

For the filling I used (apologies for the lack of quantities, I can’t remember exactly how much)
* castello blue cheese (Andrew uses gorgonzola which Sainsbury’s didn’t have, but I think would work better)
* green peppers
* mild sweet peppadew piquante peppers, which we’re really addicted to at the moment
* red onions

I fried the onions, then added the green peppers, and finally mixed in the piquante peppers and the cheese.

To construct the calzoni you need to divide the dough into four and roll gently into rounds. Leave to relax for 2 minutes and then roll out into a circle about 15cm diameter. This bit was the really fun bit. The dough is so nice and soft and stretchy and quite forgiving. You can throw it around and pretend you work at dominos.

Brush the edges with egg, put a dollop of filling in the middle and fold over. Finally brush the tops with beaten egg and leave to prove for an hour. Bake at 200C for 15-20 minutes.

To be honest the filling wasn’t a huge success. The creamy blue cheese, bitter green pepper and sweet and spicy red peppers clashed a bit. However the dough was so nice and soft and light that they were gone within 5 minutes flat. Even the two I’d made for lunch the next day.

I’ll definitely try this again but experiment with some different fillings. They taste fantastic fresh, but they could also be good things to make a batch of at the weekend for lunch during the week.

Any suggestions for fillings? Andrew says it’s better to go for things that don’t change in size dramatically when cooked otherwise you end up with an empty calzoni.

On paper it looked like it might be a bit of a faff, but it was actually really easy, if a bit sticky.  The day before baking I put some raisins, sultanas and candied peel to soak in a LOT of brandy.  I also made some marzipan from ground almonds, caster sugar,  icing sugar and egg and kept it in a plastic bag in the fridge.

The stollen dough was a slight variation on normal dough, with an egg, sugar and butter added.  It used a 2-stage ferment and dough process,  which takes a bit longer but you need less yeast.  Get the ferment going and keep it somewhere warm for about an hour, then just add the dough ingredients, knead energetically (this is one of the sticky bits) and leave it to rise for another hour.

Finally you drain the fruit, drink the brandy (mmm) and fold it into the dough.  Roll the dough into a rectangle, roll the marzipan into a slightly smaller rectangle (another sticky bit), and place it on top.  The whole thing can then be rolled lengthways into a long sausage shape.  Brush with some egg and leave it to prove (rise a bit more), before baking for about 30-40 minutes at about 180C.  As soon as its ready you brush it with melted butter, and after it’s cooled you can dust with icing sugar.

Fruits:

• 180g mixed sultanas, raisins and candied peel
• Lots of brandy or rum!

Marxipan:

• 60g ground almonds
• 20g caster sugar
• 20g icing sugar
• Egg (beaten)

Ferment:

• 5g sugar
• 5g fresh yeast
• 60g milk or water (at 32C)
• 50g stoneground wholemeal flour

Dough:

• 30g sugar
• 70g strong white flour
• 40g stoneground wholemeal flour
• 1 egg
• 50g salted butter

We made a few of these over Christmas for various people, and a couple of tips we picked up:

1.  It’s definitely worth making the marzipan the day before and then keeping it in the fridge – it’s much less sticky and easier to roll this way.

2. Use your hands to fold the fruit into the dough. It’s easier to get it mixed in well, otherwise it all seems to end up on the outside.  You need to be careful not to break up the structure of the dough.

3. Dust with icing sugar just before serving otherwise it gets soaked up really quickly and disappears.  Andrew says shop-bought stollen contains lots of chemicals to stop the icing sugar getting absorbed.

4. The whole thing seems quite messy while you’re making it and doesn’t sound anything like the instructions, but it comes out really well once it’s cooked.  I prefer the rustic look anyway….

And that’s it.

I’m really impressed with the Bread Matters book – thanks Alice!  It’s worth reading some of the theory before getting started.  More adventures in baking to follow soon…

That’s roasted sweet potatoes, turnip and potato wedges on the side, with some curly kale.