Ethiopian Food Experimentation!

For the past few weeks I have been suffering a killer craving for Ethiopian/African food. While I would normally just head down to one of the many restaurants in the neighbouring suburb of Footscray, T & I are living on student budgets at the moment and I thought it would be a good challenge to whip up some food at home. I will admit that I did cheat a bit and get my Injera (sour pancake-like bread that you use to scoop the food up with) from Footscray as I didn't want to spend the time figuring out how to make it, but we made everything else ourselves!!

To get started we prepared the ubiquitous Ethiopian spice mix Berbere. I called out ingredients and amounts as T assembled the mix in a frying pan and lightly toasted it upon completion. This amazingly delicious spice mix is still haunting our kitchen and is still making the house smell tantalizingly good 24 hours later. 

Here is the recipe I used for the Berbere:

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon red chili flakes

1/2 teaspoon hot cayenne powder

1 tablespoon salt

Combine together, and toast in fry pan until fragrant!

Using that spice mix you can now make the following recipes- Yellow Split Pea Stew and Misir Wot. For the greens, T just picked some Silverbeet from our back garden and sauteed it with garlic, turmeric, and berbere spice mix (to taste). I know it's not much to look at, but boy was it tasty!!

When I say these were delicious, it is an understatement. I'm still flabbergasted that we made something that was restaurant quality in taste AND significantly less oily than our previous restaurant meals. These recipes come highly recommended!! If you try them please let me know how they come out. Happy cooking!!

Pizza Perfection!!

Being from the home of some of the world's best pizza, it has been a long-term goal of mine & T's to get close to replicating the pizza of my pre-Australian life. Throughout the years we've played around with all the variables- types of flour, sweeteners, mixing methods, cooking times, etc., and I thought I'd share our current leader in pizza dough recipes.

This dough is great- it's chewy, resilient under heavy toppings, doesn't rise too much, and gets crispy on the bottom with proper use of a hot oven and preheated pizza stone. And it's tasty too! Here's how we do it.

This recipe ends up making 4 pizza-stone size pizzas (5 if you stretch it). We usually make 4-5 and freeze/refrigerate some for work lunches!

1kg Plain Flour (Type 00 is preferred)
14g Dried Instant Yeast
15g Salt
2Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil + extra for drizzling over dough
2 1/2 - 3C Warm (not hot) Water
Optional: A few teaspoons of dried herbs

Firstly, put your pizza stones in the oven and crank the heat to maximum! Then pour yourself a glass of nice wine. This is essential to pizza making success!

Now for the actual dough making... We use a Breville Scraper Mixer Pro (the apple green coloured love of my life) so I dump all the dry ingredients, including herbs if they're being used, in with the dough hook attachment. Turn it on low and then slowly add the Olive Oil & Water. How much water you need will depend on your flour quality and the weather, so it's best to add a bit at a time and check the dough consistency to know when you've added enough. Once all the water has been added, it's okay to turn it up slightly higher to increase the "kneading" power. I let it knead for about 2-3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic. If you are doing this all by hand, add the ingredients together in a bowl and then hand-knead until you arrive at the smooth, shiny, elastic result. I expect it would take about 4-5 minutes longer.

I then form the dough into a ball, put it back in the mixing bowl, drizzle some olive oil to keep it from drying out, and cover the bowl with a damp tea towel. It's a good idea to put this bowl of dough near the oven so it stays warm (but not ON the oven as it may start to cook). How's your wine level? Do you need a top up? I usually do!

After about an hour, when the dough has doubled in size, it's ready to be separated into 4-5 smaller balls from which you will make your beautiful pizzas. I find that rotating and stretching the dough is the best way to make it pizza-sized, but you may prefer rolling it out if you don't like the rustic, hand-made look!

My tip for making uniform pizzas that will transfer easily to the stone is to use a metal round pizza tray to put the dough onto. That way you can have a relatively round pizza base and quickly flip the tray upside down onto the pizza stone. This requires a bit of practice, so if it seems like too much of a challenge, you can try forming the base on the bottom side of the pizza tray and sliding it onto the stone. Then you do a super-fast pizza toppings spread and pop that baby back into the oven to incubate!

As for cooking times, I generally leave the oven light on and check on the pizzas in about 7minutes. There seems to be a great variation in cooking times between ovens, and even where in the oven the pizza is. Cooking is an art and is all about feel, so as you make this recipe and become familiar with it and your ingredients you will start knowing what feels, looks, and tastes right and what doesn't.

Good luck and happy pizza making!!