Name: Ethiopian Dinner Menu
Ingredients: 8 Hungry people

Opening our home to others is a wonderful gift and a neglected discipline in the church. But we easily forget the whole point of hospitality. Think of it this way: Good hospital-ity is making your home a hospital. The idea is that friends and family and the wounded and weary people come to your home and leave helped and refreshed. And yet, too often hospitality is a nerve-wracking experience for hosts and guests alike. Instead of setting our guests at ease, we set them on edge by telling them how bad the food will be, and what a mess the house is, and how sorry we are for the kids’ behavior. We get worked up and crazy busy in all the wrong ways because we are more concerned about looking good than with doing good. So instead of our encouraging those we host, they feel compelled to encourage us with constant reassurances that everything is just fine. Opening our homes takes time, but it doesn’t have to take over our lives. Christian hospitality has much more to do with good relationships than with good food. There is a fine line between care and cumber. In many instances, less ado would serve better.

Kevin DeYoung

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
	Ethiopian	Ethiopian, D/g	1	Servings

INGREDIENTS

Hungry people

INSTRUCTIONS

For a good and enjoyable time, take the effort to prepare an Ethiopian
dinner. The typical dish could be inaccurately described as a stew,
but is not at all like the typical American stew of beef, potatoes
and carrots. The menu would include a variety of dishes.  Many of
these dishes can be made a day or two ahead of time and will reheat
well. The only thing we cook the day of the dinner party is the
breads and the cottage cheese dishes.
Two good books for recipes are: "The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant
Ancestors" by Jeff Smith and "Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant", by the
Moosewood Collective. Both of these books are good references on
ethnic cooking in general. The second is vegetarian.
We have selected the following recipes for you to choose from:
Lamb and Cardamom (except we make it with beef) Spiced Cheese. Doro
Wat Chicken. Collard Greens and Cheese. Yemiser W'et (spicy lentil
stew) Yetakelt W'et ( spicy mixed vegetable stew)
All of these recipes call for a spiced clarified butter called Niter
Kebbeh.  We have included the recipe from each book.  They should be
interchangeable.
They all call for a spice mixture called Berbere.  The Moosewood book
uses a dry preparation.  The Frugal Gourmet book uses a mixture that
has an oil and wine base mixed in with the spices.  We would
reccommend making both and using each with the recipes from the
respective books. With experience, you may pick a favorite one and
convert the measurement from one recipe to the other.
One of the most important ingredients to the Ethiopian meal is the
bread, which is called Injera.  Try both recipes.  We prefer the
fermented version from the Moosewood book.
TO SERVE:  At an Ethiopian restaurant, the meal is served on a
communal tray.  A very large platter is covered with Injera,
overlapping to give a complete cover. Each separate dish is placed on
the Injera. On the table there is another plate with several Injera
rounds folded into quarters. To eat, one takes a hand sized piece of
the bread, folds it around a portion of one of the dishes on the
common tray, picks it up and eats. There are no utensils other than
the bread.
Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V3 #219
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:16:06 -0500
From: pickell@cyberspc.mb.ca (S.Pickell)

A Message from our Provider:

“Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited – until you try to sit in their pews.”