Quanta Fir Fir (and Majet)

In honor of my birthday, my podmate and I decided to make Majet, a tower of 4 dishes that is served at Bolé restaurant. After postponing the dinner once, we finally made it happen last weekend. And, wow. I kind of can't believe we made something SO delicious and magical. I told another friend about it who commented, it's like you had meat cake! Which is kind of true. Majet is totally like meat cake.

I ate way too much because I couldn't help it, it was so good. After dinner I proceeded to be fairly horizontal for the rest of the evening - which was pretty perfect. We watched the new episodes of Top Chef and smoked hookah and it felt like I was on a weekend vacation with 5 star dining.

Majet is Bolé's creation, and is basically layers of quanta fir fir, beef tibs, kitfo, and gomen, with Ayb (a dry, fresh Ethiopian cottage cheese) and injera. It is a vision to behold, and would be quite stunning to serve for a group. Someday, this will happen. 

I somehow have neglected to post the recipe for kitfo previously, so that is still on the agenda, though the new recipe to me of this undertaking was the quanta fir fir, using the quanta (Ethiopian beef jerky) I made a couple of months ago. Quanta fir fir is commonly served as breakfast - with the dried injera it's almost porridge like, and the base of it (a berbere spiced sauce of tomato/onion) is a dish you could also eat on its own. I used some leftovers to make quanta fir fir with eggs, and it's kind of like an Ethiopian version of chilaquiles using dried injera (called derkosh) instead of corn tortilla chips. *To make derkosh, you just need to dry any leftover injera in the oven at a low temp. It shrinks a bit and becomes crisp. You can also buy it from Ethiopian grocers.

The Quanta Fir Fir is the orange layer on the top!

We made a large batch, which made for MANY meals. I am halving what we made below. My friend is not a measurer, so I estimated as best I could. We chopped everything in the food processor because we were prepping items for this dish and for the gomen too. I'm guessing this amount would serve 4?! Really hard for me to tell.

• 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1" piece of ginger, minced
• 2 red onions, diced small
  
• 4-5 tomatoes (med), diced small
  
• 3 T berbere
  
• sea salt to taste
  
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1/4 - 1/3c avocado oil
• 1c quanta, torn into bite size pieces 
• 1 tsp black cardamom
• 1-2 T Ethiopian spiced butter (or ghee)
• 1-2 c dried injera (called derkosh)
  

1. To a dry pan, heat onions over medium heat. They will release their liquid and start to become thick, almost gelatinous. 
2. Add 2/3 of the garlic/ginger, leaving the rest to add at the end. Also add spices, bouillon, and 1/4c avocado oil. *You will likely add some more oil as you cook, looking for a thick, almost gelatinous texture, and so the onions and spices do not stick to the bottom of the pan. The berbere will make the dish very red. 
3. Once you've sauteed the added ingredients in the oil (several minutes), add a little water and the tomatoes. The mix will be quite soupy. Turn the heat to med-low, cover and simmer. It will get thicker. (This dish can be served on its own here, it is really delicious as is.)
   

   

   Berbere sauce on left, gomen on the right
   

4. After the sauce simmers for 5 minutes or more, it will be a bit thicker (see photo above). Add the quanta, black cardamom, and butter/ghee. Stir and simmer another few minutes to hydrate the jerky. Finally, add the derkosh. Gently stir while it hydrates, several minutes. The saucy mix will now become quite thick, almost like a porridge of injera. It is now ready to serve!
   

 

For the Majet, we started with a layer of injera, 2 pieces layered on top of one another, rolled up on the sides to create an edge. We then layered our beef tibs, and then the quanta fir fir. On top of that went the gomen, followed by kitfo, and finally the ayb. Plus kitfo in the corners with tibs in between to fill the platter and touches of more ayb for aesthetic viewing.

 So spectacular!!!