Awaze Tips
You will need lean stew meat, oil, 3 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 cans diced tomatoes, berbere spice powder, salt & pepper, lentils, 1 cucumber, 2 Roma tomatoes, & lemon or lime juice.
Start by cutting your thawed lean stew meat into small pieces (whatever size you prefer). Add about 2 tablespoons of oil in a skilled and heat. Once hot, add the meat and cook it until it's brown. (while the meat is cooking, you can prepare the lentils...which I've explained further down)
Once meat is brown, add about 2 onions, diced, and 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Saute until onions are soft. Add 2 cans of diced tomatoes.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of berbere spice powder. Salt & pepper to taste.
Bring the mixture to a boil...a pretty good boil. (as the picture shows giant bubbles...that's the kind of boil I'm talking about!) Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until it forms a thick sauce.
See how it's thick? That's how it should look at the end...right before you devour it.
Now, for the lentils... (which, for the record, I have NEVER cooked lentils before, nor did I have a clue what they even looked like) You can boil the lentils while you cook the stew meat, so everything is ready at the same time.
Cook lentils according to package. We made 1 cup of lentils and the package instructions say to add 3.5 cups of water per 1 cup of lentils. So, bring the water to a boil, add the lentils, cover & cook on medium low heat. To know if they're done, squish one lentil between your fingers. If it squishes between your fingers easily, it's done. It should be pretty mushy.
Next, strain the water and add a little berbere spice powder and a bit of garlic powder. (you can add paprika as well, if you so desire)
Here's the final product. (sorry, the color of the photo is off due to the fact that I didn't have my nice camera with me, so I just used my pocket-sized point & shoot camera)
Now for the delicious salad! (which you can prepare while the meat mixture & the lentils boil/cook)
Peel about 4 sides of a cucumber (leave some skin, but this is to keep the salad from being too crunchy) using a knife.
Slice cucumber into thin pieces (not too thin, but not too thick).
Stack the slices and then cut into even smaller pieces.
Dice 2 Roma tomatoes until they're the size you want them. We diced them pretty small. Add a little lime juice and salt and pepper and then you're good to go!
This is the final product. Mmmmm...my mouth's watering just thinking about it.
This is anjara...which is a type of bread...From the way it looks, you might think it would come from the sponge family (I assure you, it doesn't), but it is bread and it's really good.
We laid out our dinner spread in the same manner that an Ethiopian family would serve it at their home...on a big tray. Everyone eats from the same tray. The anjara is placed on the bottom, meat mixture in the middle, lentils & salad on the side. The meat can be a little spicy, so we eat it with yogurt (which is the white stuff in the picture) to help keep our mouths from spitting fire.
This is my bro-in-law, James, demonstrating how to eat Ethiopian food. Show 'em how it's done!
Here is my older sister, Jennifer (on the left), and myself (on the right) eating Ethiopian food. Ethiopian food is eaten with your hands. For those civilized people, it may be hard to wrap your mind around it, but it is quite fun to put down the fork and eat with your hands. You use the anjara to pick up the meat, lentils, salad, or yogurt. You mix whatever you want together and then stuff it in your mouth. If you haven't tried it yet, you really should!
It was a delicious dinner. Jen was a great teacher. I wonder what she'll teach me next!
I hope you'll be open minded to try new things and give this recipe a shot. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Remove from the oven and let sit for a few seconds before removing from pan. Don't let them sit too long or they'll harden and you won't be able to fold them. Loosen edges of cookies with a spatula. Turn cookie over on a plate.
