Set Dosa sounds good to me! Each Stew could have it own private Plate 
I thought it was because I was using proportionally a lot of millets, but the 1-day injera in the book uses 100% teff.
But he adds baking powder before cooking, which I didnât do.
Thinking of trying his 1-day method now, but with jowar and ragi.
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Thanks for these suggestionsâŠplease, keep them coming from more experienced makers of this Ethiopian clarified butter than I am.
I agree the spices will get toasted in the long cooking time.
I overbrowned the butter last time, not the spices. And it does make sense not to do his suggested preliminary skim at the first stage because itâs all going to be strained at the end through cheese cloth.
I got pretty good results from ~30 mins on low heat without clarifying the butter (adding the dried green herbs halfway through). Havenât done a proper prep for a fair comparison, though.
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WHOLE GRAIN TEFF SALAD - ebook
There is no picture of this because it didnât get made. I tried. I started with cooking the teff, and that is where it ended. The instructions are to toast the teff in a heated saucepan, then add water and cook by the absorption method. The problem was that after the suggested cook time, there was still a sea of water covering my teff. So I put the lid back on and cooked some more. And then some more. Rinse and repeat until 45 minutes has elapsed and I had a thick sludge. No way a salad could be made out of it. Figured maybe I could let it set in the fridge over night then fry it up in squares like one would do with polenta or grits. This is the biggest grain-cooking failure of my life, by far. If anyone else has experience with teff and can troubleshoot this recipe, Iâd love to see you give it a go. The recipe was not that far off the directions on the bag of teff.
In other news, my teff started developed red spots, and had to be discarded. So Iâm starting fresh it and it will be a bit longer before I can get to the injera (Not my week, is it?). Fortunately, I have more of the dehydrated starter than was originally given to me in the freezer. It was a rice flour starter, so Iâve rehydrated it and fed it with some rice flour, and as soon as it shows signs of life I will start feeding with teff. I bought groceries for a number of dishes, so hopefully it wonât take too long.
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BRAISED BEETROOT BATONS
This is a very simple dish â beetroot cooked with onions and garlic, and finished with jalapeño and lemon juice.
I will never understand dishes that donât pre-cook beetroot, because it takes SO LONG to cook stovetop. So of course I pressure cooked my beets first.
Iâve seen him add jalapeño as a garnish rather than cooked into dishes a few times now, and I wonder if itâs to control the spice. I used indian green chillies and added them to the beets while they braised. The squeeze of lemon balances everything out nicely.
I really wasnât expecting much here, but if you like beets, this is delicious! I ate it with dal, rice, and fish.
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INJERA
SAUTĂED STRING BEANS AND CARROTS (Foselia)
SMOOTH SHIRO (Mitten Shiro)
TOMATO SALAD (Timatim Kurt)
POTATOES AND CARROTS IN GINGER TURMERIC SAUCE (Atakilt)
Injera lines the plate and the other dishes are pictured clockwise from upper right.
Finally! I got a new batch of teff starter going, and it is really rambunctious. I didnât really follow the injera recipe in the book, as I made my started in my own way (I was starting from a dehydrated rice-based sourdough starter). Got that going over the course of a few days in a pint jar, and refrigerated until I was ready to start the injera. Really, the timing of the injera with getting the groceries and setting aside some time to make the rest of the meal is the hardest thing here. The recipes themselves are incredibly easy.
For the injera, I started it Tuesday night. Because Iâm starting from a place of already having a very active starter, I just mixed a full batch worth of teff flour with water and roughly 1/2 cup starter. I used the amount of teff flour in this recipe, but other than that, didnât really follow it. I used 1/2 brown teff and 1/2 ivory teff. The recipe in this book doesnât call for any fenugreek. The recipe in Teff Love does, and I like it, so I added a teaspoon. I left that batter out overnight, covered. In the morning it had blown the cover off the bowl and was overflowing onto the counter. OK⊠I checked my notes from when Injera and Wat were DOTM back in the CH days, and saw a note that my one failure with injera happened with a very active starter and me starting the batter to far in advance. So wanting to avoid that, but not wanting to move up my cooking time, I put the batter in the fridge to slow it down. This turned out to be a good move. The next morning, Friday, I pulled the batter out of the fridge, gave it a stir, and did the step of making the absit, where you cook some of the batter into a thick paste and add it back in. This step is really crucial in getting injera to work. Donât skip it. I use a stick blender to get the paste evenly incorporated back into the batter. Friday night I cooked the injera. I did this after all my other dishes were cooked and keeping warm. I use a large non-stick skillet, the base of which is just over 10" across, so that is the size of my injera. The yield for the amount of flour I used was⊠I didnât count, but looking at the stack of leftover injera in the fridge, I think I got 12 out of it. I stirred in salt just before cooking, and thinned my batter just a tiny bit. Injera are supposed to cook on an open surface, but I find that putting a lid on the skillet for part of the cooking results in a more even cook. I do this after the holes have formed on the top, but there is still raw batter on top. The spots of raw batter are never evenly dispersed, and the lid helps trap some heat and get the top cooked evenly. The only thing to watch out for is that you donât want so much moisture to accumalate that water drips back down on the injera. My skillet has a glass lid, so I can see what is happening and remove the lid before I get any drips. Hope all that is helpful to someone.
As for the dishes, they were all very simple and dead easy. For the green beans, you sauté onion, then add garlic, tomatoes, turmeric, and salt, and cook down. Add green beans and carrots, and a bit of water if needed, cover and cook until everything is tender.
For the mitten shiro, you whisk the mitten shiro flour with water. Sauté onion, garlic, and ginger, then add the shiro mixture. Cook down until it thickens. Finish with spiced butter and garnish with jalapeño.
The tomato salad is just chopped tomato, onion, and jalapeño in a dressing of balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Soooo simple.
For the potatoes and cabbage, you sauté onion, add garlic and ginger, then turmeric, and season with s&p. Stir in the cabbage, cover and cook a few minutes, then add the potatoes and some hot water, cover and simmer until tender.
All of this soooo easy, and except for the shiro, no special ingredients. Any of these vegetable dishes could be made on its own as a component of a non-Ethiopian dinner.
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This looks incredible.
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Interesting, I was taught to cover the Injera after 80% of the surface has âEyesâ till steam can be seen and the Edges are lifting. Sounds like that is what you did instinctively.
I use a Bamboo steamer Lid.
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See, my problem is that many times I quit looking at a recipe once Iâve reached a certain point in the process. If I had read the recipe in the book all the way through, I would have seen that sure enough, it does tell you to cover the cooking injera when the top is about 75% cooked. It even suggests the glass lid. I didnât read through the cooking process because I had already worked out my own way of doing it.
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I also canât get my dates right. I cooked the injera on Thursday night (obviously, since today is Friday). So started on Tuesday evening, cooked Friday evening. But after looking at my past notes, and given how active my starter is, next time I would start my batter 24 hours before I intend to cook.
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Really beautiful and appealing plate of food!
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COLLARD GREENS WITH SPICED BUTTER AND MITMITA (Gomen Kitfo)
Added on additional dish to the platter last night. The recipe has you trim the greens, then boil for 15 minutes. You then drain them, squeeze out the excess water, finely chop, then put in a sautĂ© pan with spiced butter, mitmita and salt. And cook on low briefly. Now, like any respectable southerner, I worship at the church of pot liquor, so boiling and draining collards is, to me, just plain wrong. For the sake of cooking from the book, I did as the recipe instructed, but I wouldnât do it that way again. Interestingly enough, in the other collard green recipe, the one with onions and ginger, the greens do stew in their own juices, as they should. I should note that in place of niter kebbeh, I used the yeâqimem zeyet (seasoned oil, or in my case a blend of oil and vegan butter) from Teff Love. My mitmita spice blend was also the one from Teff Love. I had both of these seasonings already made, and want to use what I have before making the versions in this book. In the case of the mitmita, the difference is significant. Both books call for hot chiles. But the blend in Teff Love calls for cardamom and cloves, while the one in Ethiopia calls for ajwain, koseret, and nigella. So quite a different flavor. The greens were good, but I prefer the version where they are cooked with garlic and ginger in their own pot liquor. The collards appear in the photo at 6 oâclock.
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Totally on board about the Collards.
Onion, Galic, Ginger + Tomato sautéed . Add chopped Collards and a bit of Water. Simmer till tender and add Tikur Azmud (Nigella), Korerima(False Cardamom), Salt and Sliced Jalapeños simmer another 5.
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SPICY RED LENTILS (Misr Wat)
This is possibly my favorite Ethiopian dish, so I was looking forward to adding it to the platter. Itâs easy to make. In this version, you boil red lentils for 12 minutes, drain them (again with the throwing out perfectly good liquid), then sautĂ© onion, add garlic, berbere, ground nigella. Add drained lentils, season with salt, and add a bit of the reserved cooking water. It is optional to add some mekelesha spice blend (I did).
So I said this might be my favorite Ethiopian dish. But not this version. Where do I start? First off, I was using the berbere blend from the book this time, having used what I had previously on earlier dishes this month. The mekelesha spice blend was also from this book. So I was fully invested in the authorâs seasoning. The problem with the berbere is that he simply doesnât use enough of it. He admits as much in the headnote. This recipe calls for 2 TEASPOONS of berber for a cup and a half of lentils. For comparison, the version in Teff Love (which is excellent) 3 TABLESPOONS of berbere for just 1 cup of lentils. I did use more berbere, because it was clear early on the tiny amount in the recipe wasnât going to work. So I tripled it. Yes, tripled, and it still wasnât enough. The author compensates for this by adding the mekelesha spice blend, but the problem with that is that itâs the wrong spices. Itâs heavy on cinnamon, and that cinnamon flavor comes through too much in the finished dish. Itâs a hard no from me, and is what ruined the dish for me more than the shortage of berbere. This version might work for people who want to avoid a spicy dish and donât mind a noticeable cinnamon flavor. That is not me. The misr wat is pictured below at 6 oâclock on the platter.
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It is my favorite Ethiopian dish too, and I would be extremely disappointed with a cinnamon heavy, heat lacking version.
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I have to say that the Recipes in this Book completely underwhelm me.
Not one of them, after reading through the Recipes looks like it would be good to me. 
Should have bought the Digital Version.
Iâll stick with the versions I already know.
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Iâm working from the digital version. If the book were great, a hard copy would earn a place on my shelf. But that isnât happening so far. The vegetable recipes like the green beans and potatoes and cabbage were fine, but I have other versions as good or better. Good thing for people who want to try the book, is that the ebook is quite inexpensive right now.
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SPICY PUMPKIN STEW (Duba Wat) - ebook
Winter squash are not my favorite veg. Which is why, months after my CSA ended in December, I still have some lounging on my kitchen counter. Good news is that Iâve always liked this Ethiopian preparation, which has enough punch to counter the bland sweetness of winter squash. I used two butterkin pumpkins for this recipe. My total cubed squash was ~750 grams, so I made 1 1/2 recipe. I made this as written except increased the berbere just a little bit. If I made the recipe to scale, I should have used 1 1/2 Tbs, and I used 2 Tbs. Oh, and the garlic⊠I used three cloves, which was to scale, but they were HUGE cloves, so I was probably generous with the garlic. Spicing was sufficient in this dish to do what it needed to do, and we were quite happy with it. I have also made the version of this in Teff Love which more heavily and complexly spiced. The one in Teff Love is better, but this version is easier and still pretty good. Shown at 6 oâclock on the platter. I also had to make a new batch of injera, so Iâm posting a pic of them as well, since I didnât with the last batch.
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