This is my first attempt at Ethiopian cuisine. I found a nice little Ethiopian market about 1/2 a mile from my house. If you are in Portland, head up N MLK and you will pass quite a few Ethiopian restaurants. I went in the market looking for the spice blend, berbere, and some ground teff flour. Nothing in the market was labeled so I had to ask the lady behind to counter to direct me to the berbere and teff flour. They had both, but I decided to get some freshly made on site injera instead of using the teff to make it myself. After getting those two ingredients, I was able to pick up everything else at the farmers market or grocery store.

1lbs, red potatoes
4 carrots
1 large red onion
4 cloves garlic
1 small chunk of ginger
2 summer squash
1 zucchini
1 large bunch kale
1 lemon
olive oil
berbere spice
water
salt
1 package injera

Start by chopping the onions. Coarse is good for all of this. In a large pot with hot oil, sautee the onions until soft. Then toss in the chopped garlic, and peeled and chopped ginger. Chop the carrots and potatoes into bite size chunks and put them in the pot. At this point, I put in two Tablespoons of the berbere spice and about 1/2 a cup of water. I let this cook on low heat, stirring every 15 minutes or so for about 2 hours, adding water when it started to cook down. Once the starchy veggies cooked down and began to thicken the sauce, I added the chopped squash, zucchini and kale. I then added about 2 more Tablespoons of berbere and juiced the lemon and salt. After another 15 minutes, it was all cooked. I was looking for a nice thick, chili consistency, without much drippage. I put a few spoonfulls onto the injera laid over the plate, and had another injera to help scoop. Note: two injera is too much injera to eat in one sitting. And that's coming from ME.

The flavors weren't as strong as they could have been. I think I will need to try this again (mostly because I have a lot of berbere left). Next time, I will probably go with a misir wat, or red lentil stew. I'm going to try my hand at making the injera myself (by the way, the flavor of the injera is what really makes this dish unique, don't skip it). Also, I will probably save the garlic, ginger, some of the berbere and some oil and saute those up separately right at the end and then mix it in. I think the way I did it cause the flavor of the garlic and ginger to cook off and not contribute too much in the end profile.