my meager kitchen

Welcome to the first installment of My Meager Kitchen. Admittedly I am in Ethiopia and terror abounds but I hope you’ll find these recipes to be terror-free. Instead, I’ll show you what you can do with a double hot plate, large-ish toaster oven, limited ingredients, limited utensils and budget au birr.

Today’s dish: Ferengi Dabbo Ferfer

Description: Essentially it’s like an odd variation of stuffing. But not cooked inside a bird. And it has tomatoes in it.

Listening suggestion: Dolly Parton

Serves two or one hungry person

Ingredients:
one onion
zucchini (optional)
vegetable oil
three tomatoes
berbere
cumin
water
vegetable stock
dabbo

First peel a purple onion (if there’s a slight dusting of mould, don’t worry – the inside should be fine) and chop only half of it. Also chop up a bit of zucchini while you’re at it. Next, add some cheap worrisome vegetable oil to a large pot, enough to cover the bottom. Turn your hotplate to Max. While that heats up, take out three medium sized tomatoes and cut them into pieces the size of asser sentim. Add your onions to the pot, stirring until they become vaguely translucent and not quite so purple. Then add the zucchini.

Next dump in some of that berbere your mother-in-law gave you (careful, it’s hot) and some cumin. Stir until the spices are nicely bubbling with the onion and zucchini.

It’s time for the tomatoes. Add them and watch ‘em sizzle. Stir quickly for about 10 seconds, then add some water. Not too much! Just a bit so the tomatoes can get soft. Essentially you want them to mush up and come apart from the skin. Keep the setting on Max and add more water if it’s disappearing. At some point, throw in a bit of veggie stock to make it tastier. If you don’t have any, just use some salt. Stir occasionally.

In the meantime, break apart some bread into a bowl (or two, depending on how many you’re serving). The choice of dabbo is key because if it’s too much like a baguette, it’ll go disgustingly mushy on you. I’ve found ambasha is best (like these cute ones from Fantu). If you don’t readily have ambasha on hand, try a nice heavy bread like sourdough.

In the end, you want the tomato mixture it to be slightly thick but not too lumpy because the tomatoes should have already broken apart. Some of the oil should be seen on the top. Add the bread to the mix and stir until everything’s covered nicely.

Eneu bela.