Gomen - Choice of collard greens or spinach sauteed with
garlic and onions. Ours were collards. Nice garlickiness,
but the dish would have benefited from an inauthentic dose
of smoked pig. To my knowledge the Ethiopians don't eat pork,
despite being neither Muslims nor Jews but a Christian nation.
I've had it also with the spinach, and that is nice, too... maybe not
quite so needy of the dose of smoked pig... ;)
Collards can always use a dose of smoked pig. Spinach,
pig or dairy product. Garlic is nice with both.
Doro We't - Chicken drumstick and hard-boiled egg sauteed with
onions and garlic and simmered in a sharp and flavorful berbere
sauce. Very browny spiced, very tasty, with a spice that
gathered at the back of your throat but not really hot.
Doro Alicha - Chicken drumstick and hard-boiled egg sauteed with
onions and garlic simmered in a mild turmeric flavored sauce.
I think an even better dish, in balance, creamy, the turmeric
a whisper; I preferred this to the other chicken dish despite
its not having any heat to speak of. By the way, I've seen
these transliterated as Wot and Alitcha respectively, if you
want to look the recipes up.
As Richard and I tend to get the special plate #3, which comes with the
Doro We't, I'd not had the Doro Alicha before... I also liked it a
lot... ;)
The alicha dishes were more garlic-heavy and thus by
definition good; the wot dishes were spicier and also
by definition good.
Yebeg Alicha - Fresh and tender lamb sauteed with onions and
garlic simmered in a mild turmeric flavored sauce. This was
as above but with a sour tang that I was ambivalent about.
Yebeg We't (Key We't) - Fresh and tender lamb sauteed with
onions and garlic simmered in a sharp and flavorful berbere
sauce. Very brown again; again could have been a ton hotter.
The Alicha comes on platter #3... so again, it's the one I'm more
familiar with... I think, if with a smaller group, one could order the various entree samplers to be hotter.... I forgot to ask for the
proffered dish of cayenne (probably Mitmita) to hot things up when
wished, but maybe that was just as well... :)
It struck me that they might have been a little free with
how they ladled the stews onto the injera; but more likely,
my vision coupled with the free trade of morsels and
sometimes whole platters might have confused me.
Kitfo - A spicier dish minced beef seasoned with Niter Kibbeh
(Ethiopian herbed butter) and Mitmita (spicy chili powder).
Served rare partially or fully cooked with a side of Ayibe (fresh buttermilk cheese). No cheese came, which didn't bother me at
all. It was in fact completely raw in the authentic way, which
also didn't bother me.
I'd told them beforehand that we did want the kitfo and the gored gored properly raw... The cheese isn't mentioned in the hard copy menu in the restaurant, so I didn't realize it was even available until I was
looking at the website (having been told that that existed with the menu available, when I asked if they had a paper take-away menu)... maybe sometime, I'll ask them about it... I wouldn't mind trying it... :)
The niter kibbeh was a little high and might have
done well with a bit of cooking, at least as a
contrast. Of course, I would not have sniffed at a
meal of raw gored gored, rare gored gored, and
cooked gored gored.
Tibs We't - Chunks of beef, sauted with onions and garlic and
simmered in a sharp and flavorful berbere sauce. As above with
the lamb but a little tougher and just a bit less gamy.
I thought there was also a portion of Tibs Alicha... with the turmeric sauce...
Possibly, in which case I might well have left it for
those who were not so enthusiastic about raw meat.
Chow mein
categories: Chinese, starch, mine
servings: 8
12 oz round Chinese wheat noodles
6 oz pork, in matchsticks
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tb sherry or rice wine
2 Tb light soy
2 oz scallions, minced
cornstarch to cover
neutral oil
1/2 c stock
2 oz slivered vegetables
- snow peas, carrots, etc.
slivered mushrooms (opt)
salt
more neutral oil
more neutral oil
4 Tb mushroom soy (sub light soy) or tt
2 Tb sherry or tt
1/2 ts sesame oil or tt
Cook noodles according to package directions until
1 minute before done.
Mix pork, garlic, sherry, and soy. Allow to marinate
at least 1 hr. Toss with scallions and cornstarch as
needed. Stir-fry over high heat until well colored.
Add stock and cook until slightly saucy. Remove from
heat and keep warm.
Stir-fry vegetables and mushrooms, seasoned with
salt, in oil over high heat until barely done.
Remove from heat and keep warm. If vegetables have
shed a lot of liquid, reduce it to a tacky liquid
and keep it aside.
Heat a fair amount of oil in a large wok or flat
nonstick pan. Use the flat pan if you want crunchy
noodles as served in a restaurant: fry the noodles
until crisped on one side, sprinkling with mushroom
or regular soy and sherry then flip. For regular
chow mein in the wok, stir-cook until noodles have
substantial crispy bits, adding soy and wine in
the same way.
For two-side noodles in the flat pan, flip the
noodle pancake as best you can - if you can safely
do so, invert the pan over a large plate and then
slip the noodle pancake soft side down back into
the pan, adding more oil as necessary, then fry
until the other side is crispy.
For one-side noodles, just put the noodles on a
hot platter, crispy side up.
In all cases, Top the noodles with the vegetables
and meat and their liquids. Toss all together if
possible - with two-sided noodles it will not be.
Source: moi
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