What do Ethiopians Order at an Ethiopian Restaurant?

when I think of Ethiopian food to be honest I mostly think about injera because I don't know that much about the cuisine today three amazing Ethiopian content creators said that they would help me out hi my name is elen I live near Portland Oregon I am originally from Ethiopia and I teach online Ethiopian food cooking classes hey my name is Helen I was born in Ethiopia and I live in London now you can find me on Instagram as Ethiopian foodie that's where I share lots of plant-based and vegetarian Ethiopian food recipes hi everyone my name is Ida I'm the co-founder of bamya which is a platform to share and celebrate Ethiopian food culture I'm really excited there's so much for me and all of us to learn so let's get the food [Music] [Music] going I want to quickly mention that the the raffle is live to raise money for the 2024 year at my sister's Education Center in usich Jordan there are 19 different prize lots that are available to be won through our raffle and each raffle entry is $5 we did this last year it was a great success all of the money is going to go to my sister's education fund which provides learning opportunities for hundreds of refugee children and their families in Oak Jordan I'm leaving a link to the video where you can learn a little bit more about the center from the students themselves the prizes are fun and it's a great way to give back a little bit at the end of the year look for the link to enter in the description so from the appetizers I've picked for you azifa which is a cold green lentil salad and it should have green lentils onions tomatoes cucumbers and a little bit of jalapeno for a Kake for the dressing we use a mustard based dressing as if is one of my favorite The Taste is Tangy slightly spicy and very refreshing a IFA always bring back memories of Summer picnics with my family you can can enjoy a Zea on its own or dip it with andera everything should come with angera andera is the pancake likee bread that we use to eat everything it's made from a grain called de it's naturally glutenfree and in the process it's fermented and you have this sour and tangy textured pancake bread and it works really well with all the spicy food a lot of people don't know this but actually Ethiopians make the best salads each bite is a unique experience combining flavors and textures in a very unique way so I implore you to try it so usually when I go to an Ethiopian restaurant I just get the veggie combo like that's it so a lot of this is going to be really new for me starting with having a salad which I never would have [Music] ordered wo the dressing on this is really Tangy it's got like a little bit of kick maybe it's from the peppers in here it's super bright and the lentils have a little bit of crunch so it's not like a really soft salad yum I think in America when I think about ordering a salad it's usually something where you're like we want maybe we need some vegetables let's just get a salad throw it in there to even out the meal that's not the kind of salad that this one is it is bold and I love it and it's a great way to start this episode I'm really excited I love that I get to eat everything with my hands today this is so exciting from the appetizers I have chosen sambusas for you to try sambusas are made from Savory fried dough they're stuffed with either seasoned ground beef or green lentils they're crispy on the outside and soft in the inside you can enjoy them by themselves or some restaurants offer a spicy dipping sauce I actually have had these before they are very reminiscent of a samosa right right I ordered these with lentils in the middle I'm like sticking with veg while I can it's like a Loosely packed lentil not a smooshed lentil interior I'm not sure what is in this sauce but we're going to go for it m very fresh what is this Tomatoes oh it's grated Tomatoes what that's so interesting with like onions in it kind of adds like a layer of brightness to the heavier lentil stuffing the dough that's surrounding these is a very different type of dough than a samosa dough it is much deer and it's not necessarily as crispy and I don't know if that's because this is delivery and they're supposed to be crunchier but I like that they're actually a little bit softer it kind of has more of a like Turkish bread type of texture to it versus like a deep fried crunchy texture it's kind of like relaxing to eat sometimes things are too crunchy but not this I think that this is a good entry level dish it's there's nothing like crazy about it it's not heavily spiced it's pretty basic and I think it'll give you a good flavor for some of the flavors you're going to experience in this Cuisine but definitely a like the kind of base level so nothing's that spicy for this next part of the episode Helen gave me some advice on how I should plate everything an Ethiopian cuisine everything is really presented and served on one big plate I'm going to suggest you try and serve up your dishes in this way so you can really have a really authentic experience so to serve everything first you're going to grab a plate and you're going to lay your inera on top and then on top of the inera you're going to scoop the different sources and you're going to use your hands to eat now most people are not comfortable with eating with their hands but we think your hands are your best tool so get comfortable wash your hands and eat if you're sharing with other people I highly suggest just eating in your own lane and and don't lick your finger while you're eating but if you're eating on your own that's all totally fine I hope you enjoy it and good luck so what I decided to do is we're going to do one meat plate and one vegetarian plate so first up is the meat one when I go to Ethiopian restaurants with my family it's usually for some type of Celebration and our first choice is always kitfo kitfo is prepared with lean ground meat mixed with oen dig seasonings and a lot of seasoned clarified Ethiopian butter is poured over the meat which makes it really delicious usually served raw in Ethiopia restaurants offer medium or well done options second meat option I go for is dorat so dorat is a spicy chicken stew essentially chicken is cooked in this stew for hours the meat should be really tender and often is served with boiled egg Doro is a traditional dish that we mainly make for special occasions like holidays the Easter Eve celebration happens at 3:00 a.m. and they serve a lot of dorat during that time special tips is lamb fried with vegetables such as green peppers tomatoes and rosemary and I think it's finished with what they call aaz sauce it's made from spicy red pepper powder called butter and it should be really nice and tender the meat and hopefully all of these dishes should give you a really good base and introduction to Ethiopian cuisine meat platter for one over here um wow great this is incredible so we're going to start at the top with the kitv I did not get it raw I got it rare I don't know if any of you saw the episode where I ate the German raw pork sandwich that was a lot uh so I think like rare felt like a good way to go M it's got it is rare it's spicy I feel like you can taste the rareness of the meat there is that kind of chewy texture to it and there's a flavor like raw rare meat has a flavor to it of like meat and I I feel like I'm getting that I kind of want to mix it with some of the veg here M it's nice to combine all the flavors I'm getting a lot of this like deep Smokey richness and that's obviously what this spice is and it's really really nice it's definitely something that's different from what I'm used to and I think it's mostly a texture thing all right we're going to go with the dorat here I've never had this this is a very famous dish and I've definitely heard of it I think I need to this egg is so appealing to me for some reason cuz it's like covered in sauce just want to like dig into the egg first that sauce or the stew sauce wow that's really really good I liked learning that meat is something that's kind of for special occasions and for holidays and I think that makes sense cuz honestly when I think about Ethiopian food I think I do tend to think about Vegetarian Cuisine but the meat dish are very famous wow this the flavor of this is honestly insane it's like gingery and oniony and there's a jamess because the onions have been so slow cooked you know like when you really slow cook onions they get kind of Jammy and sweet so there's like a spicy sweetness from the vegetables I am into that I like that I get to eat everything with like a little bit of bread this whole experience is great the chicken is really well cooked too it's not dry at all it's super tender and it's easy to just like pull apart with your hands which is like I just like love eating with my hands let me know in the comments cuz I'm always curious about this how do you feel about eating with your hands I know some people feel like strongly against it which is crazy cuz I agree with what everyone was saying in the video that like your hands are your best tools when it comes to eating my mom always yelled at me when I was a kid cuz I loved eating with my hands but it's just easier okay dorat 10 out of 10 loved it we're going to go to the special tips and every time I looked at special tips I'm even doing it right now it's special tibs and because the word tibs looks like tips to me like I just read it as special tips and I kept thinking what are the what are these tips of but it's tibs when I was ordering there was options and I went with the chicken because the restaurant said that they were very famous for this this chicken one so we're trying the chicken tibs I taste B coming off of the Dora the flavor of the special tibs is super different the flavor in this one feels like it's almost penetrated the meat a lot more it just feels like really robust and the spice is really strong and it's so good it feels like one of the most flavorful chicken dishes I've had although the door also wait these are both just really good I've never really done this show where I'm like kind of comparing things like side to side like this so like oh my god look if you're somebody who's like really into eating a lot of meat a platter like this is like astounding to go through it's just a Marvel and something that's so different cuz I've never had any of these dishes I think when looking at these three dishes the only one that I would say feels like a little bit more advanced would be the kid and that's just because you can either get it raw or rare you can also get it well done and if you did it would just be a really well spiced ground meat dish but because I got it rare I'm putting it in the advanced mode everything else though like if you're a chicken lover or a lamb because special tips comes out with lamb as well highly recommend like these are amazing the dura I get it like I get it okay we're now going to do the vegetarian platter which I've had many times but I've always just been blindly eating it never knowing really what I was eating so we're going to learn the vegetarian combo is one of my favorite essentially there are five to six dishes that you can pick from and there will be something you'll like it includes and Sh fulia is Saed green beans with carrots onions and simmered tomato sauce bua is a ground chickp dish with onions garlic and jalapenos is fresh cabbage cabbage which is cooked with potatoes onions garlic turmeric and potatoes Mr wet is split lentil stew with garlic onion tomato and the famous Ethiopian spice Burber KET is Ethiopian sprit pea stew and it's flavored with onion garlic and turmeric shiret is usually the star of the show it's a ground chickpeas to you eat it using gjera by scooping up different dishes on the plate and combining them the V combo reminds me of big family gatherings everyone has their favorite but we all share from the same late it's a mosaic of flavors that embodies the Ethiopian food culture now I have my veggie platter it's a little less intimidating looking than the meat one cuz it's smaller I thought that the restaurant did a really good job of making it for one which was fabulous okay one of the dishes on here wasn't talked about and and it's this one in the middle I called the restaurant to ask what it was this is Mr Alec and it is ginger and onions and split lentil peas similar to some of the other ones we're going to start with the green beans the faia it's nice to have a name to the dishes that's for sure M oh man these are not your American Thanksgiving green beans that is for sure there's like a lemon to them they're bright and they're very soft and like there's beans in these and carrots so there's really good texture to it I think sometimes green beans get a bad wrap for being like kind of a lame bean I don't know maybe maybe that's not true maybe that's not true that's just my opinion that like in the hierarchy of the beans green beans they're not the most beloved but I really like a green bean and I think that this dish does green beans Justice like justice for green beans in faia for sure next up here is the bouta which is got some Jalapenos in it which is interesting I didn't really think about jalapenos necessarily being an Ethiopian pepper but yeah the chickpeas are ground but they're very loose and texture they're not like sometimes I think about the fact that a ground chickpea that's smash can be very similar to the texture of a smashed potato and these are still very loose again there's a brightness to everything which I think is really nice I think one of the things that I'm struggling with is that I can't necessarily distinguish all the individual flavors of things I know that I like it and I like that I know it I always just really like it when vegetables get to be the star of a Cuisine I'm a huge veggie fan and so like seeing vegetarian forward cultures I just it makes me really happy okay cabbage the Tik Gan I love cabbage I've always wanted to do a cabbage episode cabbage is like in my blood I have it every morning M this cabbage actually reminds me of Polish cabbage a little bit that it's brazed not that seasoned this is good though this like really reminds me of the Cabbage dish I grew up with this is funny you can taste garlic and you can taste onion in this but like I would say of the dishes so far the cabbage is the softest and least flavored which is kind of nice I think actually let's let's we're going to do a little pairing of the bouta with the ti Gan let's see how this works cuz I think that combining them is also like a big part of this they play nicely together there's crunch from the cabbage and then you get all the flavor from the B J okay this is the misat and that one was also what was in the meat platter that was Heavy that meat platter is is a big boy super flavorful coming off the Cabbage into that one is like night and day this one feels like almost barbecuey it is deep nothing here is spicy by the way it's just like it's spicy but spicy being spiced I guess I could just say spiced it's spiced wow it's got like a punch you like keep tasting it even after you've swallowed and even after you've been blabbering this one is definitely the biggest kick of them all so far kick what kind of tastes like an Indian doll a little bit there's like a delicateness to it it's soft it's definitely not as heavily spiced as the one that we just had it tastes I think in a lot of ways of what like a lentil stew tastes like when you think of The Stereotype of a lentil stew I like this one it's delicate and it's kind of a relaxing especially after the last one okay shirat which it everything got a little bit mixed together because they were compacted so much but I think that's okay it's all going to get mixed together in the end anyway W this one is super creamy and buttery almost like it's interesting because the texture of the lentils is even going from like rough to Middle to this is just like soft smooth as butter in your mouth it feels like like a spread this is so interesting wow M that one's nice it's interesting because like the flavors are different but the textures being different makes them really really different too the last one that's in the middle is the Mr Alec which is interesting because it kind of well it looks it looks pretty similar to some of the other things this one almost has like the texture of feeling a little potatoey and you can definitely taste the ginger in this one which is really nice honestly like the veggie platter it's amazing you it's amazing how much diversity you can get within a limited number of ingredients cuz on this plate there's a lot of lentils but nothing tastes the same except I think maybe a little bit like these last two taste a little the same but other than that everything's really really different especially the misat and part of it might be the bad B spice it's also like the roughness of the lentils like this is the big boy and then everything else is kind of like dancing about being amazing and then this one's like I am the flavor Buster of the plate that's how I felt about this this whole thing was is so good like I'm so glad that we finally did Ethiopian food I know that a lot of you were asking for it and I hope that this is scratched your itch I'm going to leave in the description all the other things that people recommended there wasn't that much more but there are a couple of other dishes in there and of course my entire order which is going to be on my website which is linked below so that it's a little easier for you to see everything and remember what I got I highly recommend you having some me ethopian food this week it's a blast it's great for a group or one person sitting alone if you want to go to town that is the last delivery episode for the year I'm curious if you want to see any others in 2024 let me know in the comments for now I'm leaving you with two other episodes in our delivery series and I will see you all in my next episode

Channel: Beryl Shereshewsky

Views: 148,591

Keywords: beryl, berly, shereshe, beryl shereshewsky, greatbigstory, around the world, international dishes

Id: 1PjYFTsHk9g

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2023