Amharic is the primary language spoken in Ethiopia; it is also spoken in Egypt and Israel. Not all characters are pronounced the same in Amharic and English. The ending of some greetings differs depending on whether the person being spoken to is male or female.
The English transliteration of ‘thank you” is amesege’nallo’ (amesegënallô) with e’ (ë) as in the ‘a’ in ago and o’ (ô) is a cross between the ‘oa’ in coat and ‘au’ in haul. (Other variations are amesegunalhun and betam amesegënallô (thank you very much?).) (CNP’s phonetic transcription: I’ma sa ge na lew .)
‘Please’ is e’bake’h (to a male), e’bake’sh (to a female), or e’bakachu (to a group of people – regardless of their gender?). ‘Water’ is wuhu; ‘coffee’ is buna.
List of Amharic greetings. List of helpful phrases in Amharic with an English transliteration key. Amharic pronunciation key.
Menkir Tamrat is producing Ethiopian spices on a farm in Sunol, California because he missed the spices from his childhood in Ethiopia.
Related Posts
Spices – see the Ethiopian section
Ata Kilt
1 – 2 T olive oil
1/4 t korarima (kewrerima) – crushed seeds from 1 – 2 false or black (not green) cardamom pods; or substitute ¼ t crushed grains of paradise seeds
(1/4 t fenugreek seeds)
1 whole yellow onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
5 carrots, scrubbed and cut into 1″ lengths
1 – 1.5 head cabbage, cut into 1″ squares
1 to 2 cups string beans cut into 1″ pieces
4 medium potatoes, scrubbed, cut into 1″ fingers
1 t fresh crushed ginger or 1″ fresh ginger, minced or grated
1 jalapeno (or 2 small serrano) chili pepper, stem removed, sliced in half or quarters lengthwise
1 to 1.5 T turmeric
1 t basil
¼ t hot paprika
½ t ground cumin
¼ t ground fenugreek
1 t salt (or more to taste)
¾ cup water (or white wine)
1 T Niter Kibbeh
Optional: 1 small bunch of kale cut into 1/” ribbons, black pepper, zucchini, green onion, 1 diced tomato or 2 T tomato paste
Prep the vegetables. Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the oil. When the oil is hot, saute the korarima or grains of paradise, (fenugreek seeds), onions, garlic, and carrots. When the carrots start to soften, add the cabbage, string beans, and potatoes and cook until the potatoes start to soften (another 5 – 7 minutes). Add the ginger and jalapeno and cook for another minute. Stir in the rest of the spices (and optional kale if using) and water. Cover and bring to a boil. Remove the cover and stir well. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender and the water has been absorbed (about 25 minutes). Stir in the Niter Kibbeh and serve warm over injera.
Red onion and/or cabbage made the finished version muddy looking. Sweet potatoes for the potatoes was too sweet. Yukon Gold potatoes didn’t work as well as baking potatoes. More chili pepper was too much.
Vegan Niter Kibbeh (nit’ir qibe)
Saute ½ cup vegan butter, ¼ chopped yellow onion or 1 large chopped shallot, 1 clove garlic minced, 1″ finely chopped ginger, ½ t fenugreek seeds, ½ t grains of paradise seeds. Add ½ t turmeric, ½ t basil, ½ t Mexican oregano, and one strip Ceylon cinnamon bark. Simmer for 15 – 60 minutes. Let liquid cool. Strain (putting strainings into stock bag). Freeze.
Niter Kibbeh spinoff
Saute 1 cup oil, ¼ chopped yellow onion or 1 large chopped shallot, 1 clove garlic minced, and 1″ finely chopped ginger. Lower heat to simmer and add 1 t freshly ground fenugreek and grains of paradise seeds (or 1/2 t of each), ½ t turmeric, ½ t basil, ½ t Mexican oregano, and one strip Ceylon cinnamon bark. Simmer for 15 – 60 minutes. Let oil cool. Strain (putting strainings into stock bag). Store oil in an opaque glass bottle.
Injera
Serves: 3 people (about 12 small injeras); Prep Time: 3 days + 1 hour; Total Time: 1/2-1 hour for frying
Sourdough Starter
2012/10/27:
1/4 cup starter in lidded glass bowl
1 3/4 cup room temperature water stirred into starter
1 3/4 cup teff flour stirred into starter
Cover bowl. Allow to ferment at least 5 to 6 hours in a warm location.
Stir 1/4 cup batter into starter pot and return starter pot to refrigerator.
Pure Teff Starter
(From Internet sources)
3 cups of teff flour
4 cups of water
25 g of fresh yeast
Mix the ingredients together. The batter should be really liquid with no lumps. Cover it with plastic and leave it to ferment for three days at room temperature.
Expect the starter to go through a really stinky stage. Save 1/2(?) cup starter for the next batch.
Batter
[Optional: stir 1/4 teaspoon salt into batter.]
Alternative Batter
(From Internet sources: “On the third day, pour away the dark water that has gathered on top of the batter. Add half a cup of boiling hot water, mix and wait. The batter will raise and then go down again! Start frying the injera when the batter falls.” Pish – the dark water has good fermented stuff.)
Cooking
Cook batter – best explanation.
Second best cooking instructions.
Cooking
(From Internet sources)
- Heat a large (10″), non-stick skillet (with a fitted lid) over medium-high heat. If the pan is not well tempered or non-stick, with a paper towel wipe the pan’s interior with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
- Starting at the center of the pan, pour ½ cup of batter in a spiral (or pour and swirl the pan to spread).
- Cook until holes start to form on the surface – 20 – 60 seconds.
- Put a lid on the pan and steam the injera until the edges pull away from the sides and the surface is set – 30 seconds to 3 minutes.
- Transfer to a plate and cover with a cloth to keep warm while you cook the remaining injera. (The first injera or two may not be pretty.) Allow injera to rest at least 3 minutes before eating.
When using a frying pan instead of a mitad, one person will eat 3-4 injeras. A recipe with 3 cups of flour and 4 cups of water serves 3 people (12 injeras).
Injera Background
Starter
2012/10/23: From my research, a teff-only starter goes through a really fetid smelling stage. It also sounds as though making really good teff starter is like making really good San Francisco-style sourdough starter: both are dependent on the local environment. Some of the starter recipes drain the liquid top layer off of the starter before making the batter; I’m opposed to that step based on some of the observations that the active bacteria is in that liquid – maybe that’s one reason why the ‘drain’ recipes call for self-rising flour (all purpose white (wheat) flour with salt and baking powder) in the batter… the baking powder (or baking soda) makes up for the missing bacteria. Though the recipes that call for mixing the starter by hand don’t explain why, I learned from Sandoor Katz’ book (which my Sweetie bought for me) that doing so is one way to add bacteria to the fermentation medium – which come to think of it might be one reason for crushing wine grapes with bare feet. I’m starting with the middle-of-the-road path: convert a wheat starter into a teff starter. (My wheat starter might have some whole wheat in it or even some teff; I don’t remember it’s been so long since I experimented with other flours in the starter. I do remember that one incarnation – probably a version that I tossed – was nasty looking; I don’t remember the smell or taste.)
Batter
2012/10/23: Some of the mixed teff-wheat batter recipes include a kneading step; I’m inclined not to knead since traditional injera isn’t gluten-dependent. Those same recipes include a blending step to reduce the grittiness of the teff; this step I’m neutral about until doing some more experimenting. As already noted, some batter recipes call for self-rising flour (or all purpose (AP) flour with baking powder (or baking soda) and salt), but I hope to omit those ingredients with proper starter treatment.
Cooking Notes
2012/10/23: Some of the recipes call for oil in the pan: I’d like to omit the oil – Enssaro’s injera doesn’t have that sheen; the oil is in part to allow for poorly tempered pans and/or for American tastes (used to crispy edges). (The traditional pan is a mitad.) Some call for sprinkling a little salt on the cooking surface in order to promote air bubbles and/or to prevent sticking but I’m dubious as to the science behind that addition. Speaking of salt, the Wikipedia article on bread states “Salt is one of the most common additives used in production. In addition to enhancing flavor and restricting yeast activity, salt affects the crumb and the overall texture by stabilizing and strengthening[11] the gluten. Some artisan bakers are foregoing early addition of salt to the dough, and are waiting until after a 20-minute “rest”. This is known as an autolyse[12] and is done with both refined and whole-grain flours. “. Since teff doesn’t have much gluten, I’m dubious as to the benefit of adding salt (which is not in the traditional recipe). I’m also pretty dubious about adding boiling water (ob-seet): supposedly that steps kicks up the bubble action, but maybe that’s specific to a recipe that uses self-rising flour.
References
The following URL is interesting in part for the main recipe, but even more for some of the comments – especially the one about the difference in the bacteria in teff and in wheat. I’d prefer to get the starter sufficiently active that I can make teff-only injera. (BTW – this recipe was from a Canadian family who’ve adopted kids from Ethiopia and have kept traditional foods in the menu rotation.)
http://burakaeyae.blogspot.com/2007/02/step-by-step-injera-instructions-real.html
Troubleshooting injera problems: my main takeaway was why bother making the large rounds when we tear off strips to eat it anyway? Pancake-sized rounds should be just fine.
http://www.wikihow.com/Remedy-Common-Problems-With-Making-Injera
“Unless you live somewhere like Ethiopia, with the same altitude/humidity/temperature profile, you will not get 100% teff injera to act the way you want. The reason injera at the restaurant is porous on top but yours is mostly flat is because they add other flours to compensate for different climate. Add some wheat in. It feels like cheating, but there are extenuating circumstances.” (from: http://www.applepiepatispate.com/bread/injera-ethiopian-sourdough-flatbread/ )
A pretty straightforward recipe… but one that uses self-rising flour in the batter.
http://breadchick.blogspot.com/2009/04/bread-baking-babes-dont-always-knead.html
Good points in the following include: red teff has more iron than ivory teff and US-grown teff (i.e. Idaho-grown) may respond differently to US water and/or atmospheric conditions.
http://ethnomed.org/clinical/nutrition/more-about-ethiopian-food-teff
From The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia by Rebecca Wood: “Please don’t add teff flour to a yeast bread, however. Like grapes, teff has its own symbiotic yeast, and the synergy between the two is wild. The dough can run amok (this is from firsthand experience) and create a fetid stench that takes hours to air out of the house.”
Per the following, may want to use filtered, unchlorinated water. (And not fluoridated water?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough