Ethiopian Two Two

This is dinner two of two for the Ethiopian recipes, the one in which I am adventurous enough to make a foreign bread. Yemarina Yewotet Dabo is basically a bread made with honey and yeast and some spices that make it taste sort of like pumpkin pie (cinnamon, cloves and coriander). It eats more like a large slice of a light dessert biscuit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It made a nice foundation for the entree at hand.

Tibs, an Ethiopian lamb stew, is definitely not a low fat meal. It is essentially the fattiest cut of meat stewed in butter and red wine. The butter is actually a sort of compound butter that's flavored with a very popular spice blend in Ethiopian cuisine called berbere. Since I couldn't find it anywhere (not that I tried too hard) I decided to improvise and just throw the spices that would be in berbere into the "stewing liquid". The taste was similar to a gamier version of the Jamaican Pulled Pork, which I might add is never a bad thing. I found the use of so much better completely unnecessary though, and I did not find this as desirable as the pulled pork either, so if I'm craving something like this, I'd go with the Jamaican variety.

Since a loaf of bread apparently isn't enough starch for one meal, I also made some Garlic Coriander Couscous to accompany the lamb. This is quite delicious and is great hot or cold, and can easily be reused as a component of a salad if you want to throw in some tomatoes, onions and so on. Couscous is possibly the fastest, easiest starch accompaniment to basically any meal. It's so incredibly versatile! I love it.