Ethiopian Lamb and Collards

This weekend my friend taught me a new dish that was a common winter stew back home. My friend's mom is Gurage, the tribe or people whose specialty dishes include kitfo and kocho. Gurage folks eat kocho as their form of flat bread (versus injera), and my friend tells stories about her mom only eating kocho while the rest of the family ate the injera. This dish is also a Gurage one, and we ate it this weekend with kocho that I bought at Shabelle Grocery on Franklin Ave in Minneapolis. (For $10 for a package of what amounts to 8 kocho pieces. These come from Addis Ababa, coordinated by one of the folks at Dilla Restaurant on the west bank.) I really like kocho - it is a fermented flat bread that you can read more about here. It is also gluten free, which not all injera (at least in this country), is. 

Kocho - heated/fried in a bit of oil

This dish has pretty much everything I want in winter: lots of greens, chunks of meat, and a rich, buttery broth. The kocho is an added bonus that you also don't need.

4 large servings:

• 2+ pounds lamb stew meat or leg, cut in 1-2" pieces. (Have the butcher do this since there will be some bone there.)
  
• 1/4 c avocado oil
• 2-3 large red onions, diced
  
• 2-4 bunches collard greens, chopped - if you have small bunches, do 4! You want more greens than meat
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 5-6 jalapenos, sliced with seeds
• Salt and black pepper
  
• Ethiopian spiced butter to serve
• Mitmita to serve

1. Heat your oil in a large pot. Add onions and garlic and saute on medium until soft, taking care not to burn and to stir often.

2. After 5-10 minutes, add the lamb meat and about a cup of hot water. Add generous amounts of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, and decrease the heat to low. Cover and simmer for about an hour or 90 minutes total, until the lamb is tender.

3. Add the greens about 30 minutes into the simmering. *You could also add them just after the meat, but I prefer a slightly less soft green.

 4. Just before serving, adjust the seasoning to taste, and add the jalapenos. Let that simmer another few minutes and prepare your butter/mitmita, if using. *Warm your spiced butter, and stir in mitmita spice, making the butter bright red and spicy. 

5. Serve in a large bowl or rimmed plate with some of the broth. Spoon mitmita butter on the side of your bowl to dip your lamb and kocho into as you eat (it will also melt into the bit of broth). Eat with kocho if you have some!

Beef Stew - Keto

There are so many beef stew recipes, at least a few on this blog alone. This NomNomPaleo one is lower carb & keto - no potatoes and limited carrots, and includes a good number of mushrooms. It was delicious, aided by the fact of cooking it on a wood stove amidst snow flurries up north after having hiked some miles. What would not be delicious under such circumstances?! I love something cooking on the woodstove, wafting up the house with good smells, especially after a walk or ski or whatever, requiring no other heat or energy source than what is already happening.

Here is a photo of an all important protective orange hat ("I am not a grouse!") with me underneath it. (The hunters I talked with were empty-handed. The grouse, presumably, were staying put with the snow.) This stew was SO good - lots of umami - the cremini mushrooms were a perfect texture/flavor addition, the turnips were creamy, and the meat melted in my mouth. I had two big bowls, where the broth was nice and shimmery with the fat. It was so satisfying.

This recipe is also easy. I didn't brown the meat, I didn't chop up tomatoes, or use wine. I followed the NomNomPaleo recipe, but she makes hers in an InstaPot. I used some broth in mine to compensate for the longer cooking time and need for more liquid; I also added some apple cider vinegar. With weather like today in Minneapolis (5 or 6 inches of snow!), this stew is all I want. 

*Note part of why I think this was so good is that I did use Michelle Tam's magic mushroom powder (that I also use on chicken). I highly recommend it - it adds an extra boost of mushroomy/umami goodness. 

Ingredients: serves 6-8

• 3 pounds beef chuck roast, boneless short ribs, or beef brisket cut into 1½- to 2-inch cubes
• Kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder
• 1 tablespoon ghee, avocado oil, or fat of choice
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and quartered
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 teaspoon (Red Boat) Fish Sauce (I did a long pour on this tsp!)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 dried bay leaf
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 c beef/venison bone broth
• 2 turnips, diced (or daikon radish/sunchokes/any combo)
  
• 2 large carrots, diced
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, roughly chopped for serving
  

1. Toss beef cubes in salt (or magic mushroom powder) and set aside. 

2. Melt ghee/fat in a dutch oven or large pot. Add onions, and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute another 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and garlic, cook for several more minutes.

3. Add to the pot: the salted beef, tamari, fish sauce, apple cider vinegar, thyme, bay leaf, pepper, and bone broth. Bring to a boil, then set the heat to low and let simmer 2-3 hours, until beef is tender. You could also put it in a slow cooker, or move your pot to the wood stove, if you have one. 

4. 30 or so minutes before serving, add diced turnips and carrots to the stew. Continue simmering until they are soft. Taste for salt, and add more (or magic mushroom powder) until delicious. Ladle heaping chunks of meat and veggies into bowls, with just enough broth to sip at the end. Top with chopped parsley. Or sauerkraut. Or eat as is. 

Tangy Stew

I made this stew last week, and pronounced it my favorite stew recipe yet. It isn't all that different from my own made-up, or riffed-on stew recipes, except that it had vinegar in it, and anchovies. And mushrooms, which I don't usually put in stew. And more garlic than usual. I love this stew! I love the tang of it. I guess that is why I have previously liked eating sauerkraut with stew.

I appear to be on a Food 52 kick, because this is the 2nd recipe this week from them, and I've bookmarked a couple more that I want to try. I think I just visited there for inspiration a week or two ago, and achieved that end. I modified their recipe some: I didn't have leeks, used less meat, and added a potato and sunchokes. My anchovy paste, having moved a household over 3 years ago and still hanging out in the butter drawer, expired in 2014. (Maybe it moved two households? From here, to there, and back again?) I used it anyway, and also added a dash of fish sauce in case it had lost some potency. It just seems unlikely that anchovy paste goes bad?! I am not a strict adherent to expiration dates, clearly. It all went alright. I guess I'll buy more anchovy paste to have on hand for the next 6 years.

Tangy Stew serves 8
2-3 pounds beef stewing meat, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
salt and pepper for the beef
¹/₃ cup olive oil
2 med onions, diced
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, diced
4 celery ribs, diced
4 ounces white mushrooms, roughly chopped
¹/₄ cup tomato paste
2 anchovies (or anchovy paste)
¹/₂ cup red wine vinegar
1 cup red wine
3+ cups beef broth
1 cup canned whole tomatoes with juices
1 large potato, chopped
2-3 sunchokes, chopped (opt)
1 ¹/₂ teaspoons salt
3 bay leaves
³/₄ teaspoon dried thyme
¹/₃ cup chopped parsley

1. Season the beef with salt and pepper on both sides. Brown the meat in batches in a 5-6 quart Dutch oven over high heat, adding more oil as needed. Remove to a plate.
2. Lower the heat and add all the vegetables. Cook for 5-10 minutes until softened. Stir in the tomato paste and anchovies and cook to melt the anchovies and distribute.
3. Add the beef back in, with its juices. Add the wine, vinegar, and tomatoes with juice (breaking them up against the side of the pot as you go) and bring to a boil. Add the stock to cover (you may need a bit more than 3 cups). Put in the salt, bay leaf, thyme, bring to a boil. Simmer, partially covered, for 3 hours until the meat is tender.
4. Mix in half of the parsley and garnish with the rest. Serve!