Doro Wet: Ethiopian Chicken Stew

Myra called this recipe "a snap to make," which might have been true had I read through the ENTIRE recipe before going to the grocery store. The ingredients list called for "a whole chicken, cut up, skin removed and fat trimmed." So, I bought a whole chicken. I've been a vegetarian since I started grocery shopping for myself, so I'd never bought a chicken before.

Then, I got home, and I read Myra's note at the bottom of the recipe. She wrote, "Buy a whole chicken, and have the butcher cut it up for you."

Oops.

That began a serious adventure for my friend Marie who came early to help me cook. As a vegetarian, I pawned the chicken butchering off to her. Online tutorials proved invaluable (How did people butcher chickens before the internet?). I enjoyed watching her pop the wing tips out of their joints, carefully cut around the oyster on the thigh meat, cut off the neck and pull off skin.

Next time, we'll buy a pre-butchered chicken. Sure buying the whole chicken saved us about six dollars, but I'm not sure if it was worth the hour it took Marie.

Red Onion, Tomato and Mint Salad

Whenever I look at an Ethiopian sampler plate at a restaurant, I'm always initially amazed at the small servings of the dishes the restaurant provides. They look like little quarter-cup dollops on the injera plate. If you order meat dishes, they look even smaller. I immediately start to panic. Will there be enough food for everyone? 

And then, I remember that Ethiopian food fills you up quick. With each bite of food, you're getting legumes and other proteins. You're using injera to pick up each bite, which means you're eating even more.

It's times like this that I start to crave a nice cool salad. In the Ethiopian cooking class I took, instructor Myra Kornfeld provided us with a red onion, tomato and mint salad to break apart the meal. Even though it isn't technically Ethiopian, I'll definitely include it in every Ethiopian dinner I cook from now on. The flavors complement the cooked dishes perfectly, and they provided a perfect crunch that was missing from some of the other dishes.

See the gorgeous pop of color the salad provides on the plate!

I think this dish would also be delightful for a picnic in the park.

New York State Upside-Down Ice Cream Cupcakes (for the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest)

I can honestly say I've been dreaming of entering a cooking contest since I was 10. I'd pour over every issue of the Lowell Ledger, our very local newspaper, and I'd imagine what recipe I'd make for the chili contest at the Kiwanis Club or the pie bake-off at the local fair. Last summer, I considered entering the Pie in the Park contest but never quite got around to it. The desire to enter a cooking contest never faded away.

This week, I finally took the cooking contest plunge (although in a slightly different, more virtual venue that 10-year-old me couldn't have imagined would be possible). I decided to participate in the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest created by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. The challenge: create a recipe for an ice cream cupcake (that combines cake and ice cream), photograph it and blog about it. I committed, but I just had to make my creation.

Then, the New York Times posted this recipe for rhubarb upside-down cake. The recipe has you create a quick brown sugar and butter sauce to spread in the bottom of the pan, add chopped rhubarb (uncooked) and top it with cake batter. The recipe promised a delightful layer of tender pink rhubarb atop a moist cake.

I created these New York State Upside-Down Ice Cream Cupcakes as a testament to this season's New York state produce. Rhubarb came into season first, and strawberries just joined it. After a winter of eating root vegetables and cellared apples, I was ready to celebrate! Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in the Hudson River Valley provided the dairy products I needed to make the complete project a success. 

I adapted the rhubarb upside-down cake into cupcakes that were loaded with rhubarb topping. I greased and re-greased the pans so the cupcakes wouldn't stick. Each cupcake was given a spoonful of brown sugar and butter, a full layer of rhubarb and then filled about 2/3 of the way full with batter.

As the cupcakes cooked, the brown sugar and butter mixture bubbled up a bit over the sides. The baking pan I placed underneath the cupcakes as they baked was a life saver and saved me from scrubbing burnt caramel off the bottom of my oven.

I still had a batch of roasted rhubarb ice cream, using some of the beautiful local rhubarb I picked up during a trip to the farmer's market. I sliced fresh strawberries and whipped up a quick batch of whipped cream.

Assembling the ice cream cupcakes was the fun part. There are countless ways you can assemble your cupcakes (Stef from Cupcake Project has a great list of options), but I decided to go with the slice-and-stuff idea. I sliced the cupcake in half, being careful to avoid the delicate rhubarb layer. I added a layer of strawberries, topped it with spoonfuls of rhubarb ice cream and put the top back on. A spoonful of whipped cream finished it off perfectly.

Pizza with Broccoli Raab and Roasted Onions

I get excited about any recipe that calls for just a pinch of red pepper flakes. Two years ago, Cooks Illustrated wrote an article remaking pasta alla norma. In the recipe, they wrote that "a small measure of red pepper flakes added a suggestion of heat."

That small pinch of red pepper flakes totally transformed the recipe. After each bite melted away, I was left with just the smallest suggestion of heat. I was hooked. So, when I read the ingredient list for Smitten Kitchen's pizza with broccoli raab and roasted onions, I was delighted to see a pinch of red pepper flakes added into the broccoli raab as it cooked. This tiny ingredient makes a huge difference. Do not leave it  out.

Although broccoli rabe just came into season here, I see why Deb from Smitten Kitchen made this recipe in January. It involves roasting onions for at least 30 minutes, and then letting your oven preheat to 500 degrees (!!!) for about an hour. It involves standing over the oven to slide your pizza in and take it out. Thankfully, it got down to the 70s tonight, and with a fan in the window the cooking experience was quite pleasant.

The recipe called for a chiffonade cut, which I had only heard mentioned before but had never actually attempted. Kitchen Daily had this great tutorial, which made the chiffonade cut feel more manageable. It involved making lots of adorable piles of broccoli rabe leaves and cutting them into careful, even-sized strips.

The grocery store only had olives with pits, so I used a handy trick Brooklyn Larder showed me a few months ago. I put the olive on a cutting board, placed the palm of my hand on it, and pressed down as hard as I could. When I removed my hand, the pit was exposed and easy to remove. The finished product is a little messy looking but still delicious.

The finished product was light and nutritious. This is my new go-to pizza recipe.

Basic Pizza Dough

I haven't had a pizza dough recipe I just loved for a long time. I've made Smitten Kitchen's Really Simple Pizza Dough several times, and while I'm always satisfied with the finished product, the 3/4 teaspoon of yeast her recipe calls for has never been enough for my pizza dough to rise the way I want.

I picked up some broccoli rabe at the farmers' market, and found this recipe for pizza with broccoli rabe. I needed a new pizza dough recipe fast, and The New Basics Cookbook didn't disappoint.

The dough came together easily (with the same ingredients as the Smitten Kitchen pizza dough mentioned above). It called for an entire packet of yeast, which resulted in a bread that was almost exploding out of the rising container after an hour. The dough was soft and pliable.

I think the men throwing pizza dough into the air at the pizzerias of my childhood gave me a false confidence. Since I had seen them shape so many pizzas, I assumed I could do it perfectly as well. However, several misshapen, uneven pies later, I realized I needed to read up about how to actually shape a pizza.

Again, The New Basics Cookbook was there. After I had separated the dough into two balls, I let it rise for 15 to 20 minutes. Then, I started with a ball of dough and shaped it into a 6 or 8 inch flat disk. Then, I flipped the disk over and laid it on a lightly floured surface. Using the palm of my hand, I worked in a circle clockwise, stretching the dough out to form a perfect circle. Once I had the circle my desired size, I pressed my fingers along the edge of the dough, creating a more pronounced crust.

Overall, I was delighted with this pizza dough recipe, and I'll return to it again and again. I'll definitely divide it into three even pieces next time since I prefer my pizza a little thinner.

Berbere-infused Robert Linxe Truffles

These truffles are a testament to my affinity for chocolate. I started them at 9 p.m. on a school night, after finishing the berbere paste and the nit'ir qibe for my Ethiopian dinner.

I didn't need to make truffles. My friend Thomas was making an amazing birthday cake that I knew would be the perfect end to the meal. But as soon as I read about truffles filled with a chili-chocolate ganache, it was all over. The dinner just HAD to have Ethiopian spiced truffles, and, despite the fact that no one knew to expect them, I was certain the meal wouldn't be the same without them.

Deb brought her own addition to Robert Linxe's truffles by suggesting a great way to organize yourself while making the truffles. The addition of Berbere spice paste is my contribution. Only the tiniest amount of Berbere is included in the ganache, however it contributes a complex depth of flavor to the truffles.

  

Initially, you almost don't taste the berbere spice blend. But then it's there, lingering behind after the initial chocolate taste fades. It's not hot, but it gives just the right amount of spice.

Note: If you want to photograph the truffle-making progress, recruit help. Trying to photograph the process while my hands looked like this was not easy. My camera was covered with chocolate by the end.

Ethiopian Red Lentils with Peppers

Simultaneously preparing double batches of five hot Ethiopian dishes on a stove with only three working burners was a challenge indeed. Our cooking started around 1 p.m. and didn't end until everyone arrived around 7 p.m. And this was with days of preparation before (injera and truffles made, spice mixes prepared, onions chopped finely and ready). The cooking even included butchering a chicken, something neither Marie nor I had done before.

The complexity of the meal made me grateful for a delicious and simple dish like this one. With the omission of berbere and nit'ir qibe, the red lentils exuded a mild flavor with just a hint of spice from the jalapenos. As they slowly cooked, the lentils melded together into a creamy mass.

I only wish I had hunted for red jalapenos. I was trying to get all my ingredients at one grocery store, and there were only green jalapenos available. The taste was fine, but I didn't love the little green bits tucked in with the red lentils. It felt a little like Christmas.