Cooking up a Dream - An impromptu cooking lesson

One of my dream year goals was to eat as much as possible, and learn how to cook exotic or authentic specialties from the destinations that I went to. Ethiopia is an incredible place for this! Not only does it offer everything from home cooked Ethiopian, to Korean, Armenian and Sudanese foods, often in the most random places of the city!  But due to its historical links to Italy, Ethiopia also has many incredible and traditional Italian dishes on offer alongside their national dishes in local restaurants. Having set days in the week and parts of the year when it is customary to fast also means this is a vegan and vegetarians dream. It is impossible to get bored of the delights on offer! One of my Ethiopian culinary highlights by far is without doubt an impromptu cooking lesson at a southern suburb restaurant in Addis.

 


My friend invited me over to his home so his sister could show me a few dishes, excited and with camera in hand I was ready! When we arrived though the power was out in the neighborhood, making cooking rather impossible. We decided to head to his friends restaurant instead to get some food at a place called Dream. And the owner, having heard I had wanted to learn how to cook, soon offered to teach me.

Being carefully observed by the experts!

In her rather charming and tiny kitchen, with 3 other staff members I got a chance to see how the magic happened. I also had a go at making some dishes from scratch, much to some of the local customers amusement. The first dish we cooked was Shiro, a chick pea stew with a creamy texture, with a kick to it due to being propped with berbere (an earthy and hot Ethiopian spice), garlic and other goodies. Then a staple dish for any time of day, Firfir, injera bread smothered in and cooked with a spicy sauce. The pièce de résistance was getting to make an Ethiopian style pizza!

My shiro cooking , pizza being prepped.

Meseret, the owner, and fellow dreamer, plus her incredible staff were very patient with me.  Even though it was during their busiest hours of service we had a real laugh cooking some truly delicious dishes -even if I do say so myself. I could not have asked for better teachers or a more exciting experience in cooking Ethiopian food.

The final result