Maria's Snow Crescents (Hókifli)

January 20, 2016 by Aurel Pop in Cooking with Friends, Dessert

Cooking with friends is a monthly series in which my dearest friends are inviting me into their kitchens and teaching me their favorite recipes. These bonding experiences deepen our friendships, expand my palate, and enhance my culinary skills by sharing a timeless practice: cooking.

“Cooking with friends” blog posts are quickly turning into one of my favorite activities. It’s so refreshing and exciting for me to go into my friends’ kitchens and cook with them! Each experience is unique, and I’m able to discover a side of my friends that I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to see. Some are strict recipe followers, and some are improvising adventurers. Seeing the way they work in the kitchen and learning from them while they tell me their stories always fills me with joy and gratitude. Add a drink into the mix and it feels like all your problems have melted away. Friends, food and drinks connect people from all backgrounds and walks of life, and through them, many of the world’s problems are solvable.

Maria is one of those friends who’s always been there for me. Whether she’s taking care of my dog, Popsi, while I’m away travelling, giving me advice during hard times, or just listening to me, she never disappoints. I’ve known Maria since I lived in Hungary but we became close friends once we each transferred to Austin with our jobs. Maria moved to Austin in 2010, and when I arrived in Austin in 2011, I appreciated having someone who spoke my native language to help me settle in. She understood and helped me through many of the struggles I encountered as a foreigner in a country with a culture that is so different than what I was accustomed to.

When I asked Maria about having a guest post on gourmetcubicle, her eyes lit up, but then she shyly said no. It took some convincing to get Maria to agree to cook with me. She initially felt that none of her recipes were special enough, which is hardly the truth. She’s an extraordinary cook. When Maria brings me her homemade Hungarian dishes, I always finish them in one sitting. Not only is her cooking phenomenal, but Maria always seems to know when I need some home cooking. I remember that when I got back from Cambodia last year, a bowl of stuffed cabbage rolls was waiting in the refrigerator with a note that said: “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy the cabbage rolls. The sour cream is on the top shelf.” Every year on the first of January, Maria invites me over to eat Hungarian lentil stew. It’s a tradition in Hungary to serve lentils at the beginning of the New Year as they symbolize prosperity and wealth.

Maria is creative and artistic both inside and outside the kitchen. Right now she’s organizing her wedding, and she does it with so much calmness and grace that I wonder why this isn’t her full-time job. She’s designing everything from the invitations and decorations to the flowers and gifts. Everything is handmade with a touch of her own good taste. She and my other good friend Monika are creating things that are worthy of an Etsy editor pick. I hope they’ll start their own business sometime soon because the world could benefit from their creative talent.

But back to Maria’s cooking. She eventually agreed to share a recipe with me. She showed me how to make snow crescents, called hókifli in Hungarian. These tasty desserts were Maria’s grandmother’s specialty. Maria regaled me with stories of her grandma as we cooked together. She told me how her grandmother always made hókiflis, how they always turned out perfectly, and how they became her favorite childhood dessert. I hadn’t tried too many snow crescents during my childhood because my grandma made other desserts (like Zserbó Cake (Gerbaud Cake)), but once I tried them at Maria’s, I instantly fell in love with them. They are not too sweet and not too heavy on filling. They are a tasty treat on their own, but eating them with your coffee will make you think you’re in a nice little café somewhere in Europe. Enjoy!

Maria's Snow Crescents (Hókifli)

Yields 24 pieces
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Inactive time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

14oz (400g) all-purpose flour (plus more for kneading and rolling)
3.5oz (100g) white sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 sticks (200g) unsalted butter (at room temperature) + 1 TBS for greasing the cookie sheets
3.5oz (100ml) whole-milk (at room temperature)

Filling

7oz (200g) ground walnuts (replace with pecans for a more mellow flavor)
3.5oz (100g) powdered sugar
.5oz (30ml) spiced rum
3-4 tsp fresh lemon zest (about 1 medium-sized lemon)

Sugar Dip

3.5oz (100g) powdered sugar
.32oz (9g) vanilla sugar (see notes for homemade vanilla sugar)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400F (200C) degrees.
In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar and baking soda. Using a whisk mix until well combined.
Using your hands, crumble the butter into the flour. Make sure there aren't any large chunks of butter in the mixture. Slowly add milk and start kneading. Knead for about 5 minutes, sprinkling the dough with flour if it's too wet. Knead until the dough doesn't stick to the walls of the bowl.
When done, cut the dough in half and shape each half into a softball-sized sphere. Sprinkle with flour, cover with plastic wrap and let them rest in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.
Meanwhile in a medium sized bowl whisk walnuts, sugar, lemon zest and rum together until they reach the consistency of thick paste. Don't be shy; add more rum until the filling holds together.
Sprinkle flour on a flat surface and lay a dough ball in the middle. Using your hands, flatten the dough ball into a disk shape. Use a rolling to pin roll it until it's about 1/5 inches thick.
Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, slice the rolled dough into 12 slices. Repeat for the other dough ball.
Add a teaspoon of filling to the wide end of each slice. Roll the slices from the outside towards the inside (from the wide end towards the narrow end). They should look like mini-croissants or crescents.
Repeat steps 6-8 for the other dough ball.
Grease a cookie sheet with butter and place crescents on it. Put them in the oven and bake for 17 minutes. Remove from oven when they start browning at the edges (the rest should be white).
Set snow crescents aside and let them cool for one minute. Roll each snow crescent in the powdered sugar mix (they should still be hot when you do this). They break easily, so handle them gently. Serve alone or with coffee.

Notes

To make homemade vanilla sugar, fill a mason jar with sugar, about 3/4 full. Cut a vanilla bean pod in half lengthwise and place both halves in the jar. Close the lid and shake vigorously. Let it rest for a bit et voilà, you've got yourself vanilla sugar! The longer you you rest the mixture the more intense the vanilla flavor will be. Refill the jar with fresh sugar every time you're running low.
If you overcook the crescents a bit, don't worry. They will still be pretty good, but more crumbly. I personally prefer them moist, but if you want them crumbly, cook for 20 minutes instead of 17.
Keep leftover crescents in a sealed Ziploc bag. This will keep them from drying out.

Deviled Eggs

January 06, 2016 by Aurel Pop in Appetizer

Happy New Year gourmetcubicle readers! 2016 is finally here. Put everything related to 2015 behind and start over. It’s a new year, meaning that you’re free to set new goals and resolutions for yourself. It’s the perfect time to do it. It’s a known fact that the success rate of resolutions made while intoxicated during a NYE party don’t have a high success rate, so if you did that, my advice is for you to go and revise them. Be honest with yourself, because at the end of the day, you’re not fooling anyone other than yourself.

I made an extensive list of resolutions that I broke down into 5 different categories: health, personal, travel, passion (aka gourmetcubicle) and career. I don’t think that it’s a good idea to share my personal ones, nor the ones related to my career, but I’m more than happy to share the rest. I’ll start with gourmetcubicle and I'll come back to the rest in my future posts. I tried to make my goals simple and achievable, but challenging enough to keep me going. I value a strong foundation over anything else and even though it takes longer to take baby steps, organic growth combined with good planning are always the fastest way to success. So without further ado, I present you with gourmetcubicle’s resolutions for 2016:

Keep posting once a week
Keep the “Cooking with Friends” series rolling
Improve photography with emphasis on props
Increase exposure on social media (double the number of Instagram followers)
Attend events and seminars for established bloggers

Only 5 goals you may ask yourself? Well I could think of a lot more, but the point is that I want to be able to stay focused on all 5 categories (health, personal, travel, passion and career) with 5 goals related to each. That’s 25 goals to focus on and it takes a lot of discipline not to get sidetracked. Gourmetcubicle is my hobby so it wouldn’t be fair to turn it into something more than that as for right now.

Anyway before I bore you too much with resolutions, I will go ahead and move on to today’s recipe: Deviled Eggs. They are the perfect party food: flavorful, easy to make and no-fuss to pick up and chow down on. What’s really great about them from a cook’s perspective is that they require low effort to prepare a bunch (for example 10 eggs will yield 20 deviled eggs).

I’m not sure where the English name originates from, but I will assume it’s due to the use of Tabasco sauce in the American version. In Hungarian they are called Casino Eggs (Kaszinótojás) and in Romanian simply Stuffed Eggs (Oua umplute). They are slightly different from the variations I’ve tasted here in the U.S. in that both in Hungary and Romania they are covered with a thick and heavy mayo based sauce. For the sake of the most commonly mentioned of all resolutions (eat healthier) I decided to skip the sauce.

In Romania, the filling often contains egg yolks, mustard, mayo, and a fair amount of chicken liver pate. It’s an acquired taste, which I personally love, but I know it’s not that well received here in the U.S. I will eventually post that recipe as well, but for now you’ll have to settle for this vegetarian variation with mushrooms and cornichons. In the recipe I recommended kewpie mayo which is a traditional Japanese mayo that I find a lot less heavy and greasy. Kewpie mayo reminds me more of homemade mayo both in color and consistency. If you can’t find any in stores, just make your own mayo. It will make a huge difference. I also sprinkled crunchy bacon bits on them, a trick I learned from a fellow blogger friend of mine, Mike. Enjoy!

DEVILED EGGS

Yields 24-28 pieces
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

12-14 large eggs, pasture raised
1 TBS olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots (about 1 medium-sized shallot)
1/3 lb cremini mushrooms, washed and finely diced
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup dry vermouth (or dry red wine)
1/3 cup cornichons, finely diced
1/3 cup kewpie mayo (or homemade mayo)
1 TBS plain yogurt
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt
thinly sliced jalapeño or serano, for garnish (optional)
chives, for garnish
crispy bacon, for garnish (or croutons) (optional)

Instructions

Place eggs in a single layer in medium saucepan. Fill the pot with cold water to cover the eggs well over an inch. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes.
In a stainless steel skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until it starts shimmering. Add shallots and sauté for 2 minutes stirring frequently to avoid burning them.
Carefully add vermouth and cook until it thickens, about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue cooking for 5 more minutes stirring occasionally. If it becomes too dry add a tablespoon of water.
Season with black pepper and give it a last stir. Set aside to cool down.
When the eggs are done, drain the water from the pot and run under cold tap water until they are cool enough to be handled. Crack the eggshells, gently roll them on the counter and peel the eggs.
Slice the eggs in half lengthwise and scoop the yolks into a medium bowl. Set egg whites aside.
Using a fork, finely crumble the egg yolks. Add mayo, yogurt, mustard, mushroom sauté and lemon juice. Mix well. Season with salt, pepper and chili flakes. Taste, adjust seasoning and stir.
Using a piping bag or a teaspoon disperse the egg filling into each egg white half. Sprinkle with crispy bacon bits (or croutons for vegetarian version) and chives. Optionally add a drop of Sriracha sauce and a thin slice of hot pepper.

Notes

CAUTION! Adding vermouth to the skillet may cause an open flame. Do not panic as it will die out as soon as the alcohol evaporates (matter or seconds) but stand back a bit when adding it.
To clean mushroom, fill a quarter of a bowl with cold tap water. Drop mushrooms into the bowl. Submerge each one and then lift them out of the water with your hands. Place them on a paper towel and let them dry.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Sarmale)

December 28, 2015 by Aurel Pop in Main Dish

During Christmas I tried to stay away from blogging. I still cooked, but I tried to make the experience a little less stressful. I skipped taking pictures and writing down recipes. Ever since I started gourmetcubicle cooking hasn’t been the same for me. I still enjoy it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s completely different than what it used to be. Now I measure each and every pinch of spice I add and document everything I do which makes the whole cooking process a lot more time consuming. Cooking should be fun. It should be about following your gut, tasting and adjusting, screwing it up then retrying it again until you perfect a recipe. That’s what us bloggers do. We cook the same dish over and over again, until it looks and tastes perfect (or at least that's what we'd like to think).

I brought over a lot of recipes with me from Romania and Hungary. I have recipes scribbled on grease stained paper from my grandma, Buna. Some of them were inherited from from my great-grandma. I am also fortunate to have my mother and grandma give me advice over Skype every time I run into problems. Yet still some of the recipes they’ve been using for decades don’t work with the ingredients that I find here. For example, the other week I tried to make Hungarian pogácsa which is a fluffy and soft scone-like of appetizer. I followed the recipe that my mom used with success in the past, but for some reason the final result wasn’t the same. The first batch was, how to put it nicely, really bad. The second was edible. The third one will be even better. It takes trial and error to perfect something and this holds true for anything in life, not just for cooking. You have to be willing to accept that failure plays an important part in success.

Even though Austin isn’t exactly a place that reminds you of Christmas, I decided to bring back my Christmas tree decoration party after skipping it last year due to my trip to Cambodia. I started this tradition years ago when I moved to Austin and knew no one. Not having any Christmas tree decorations either, I decided to throw a party where I’d serve food for my guests in exchange for a tree ornament that they’d hang. Over the past 5 years I have collected all sorts of decorations from a mustard bottle-shaped ornament, to an ornament with a Popsi-like dog inside of it, to a mini painting of me, Roni and Popsi in front of a Christmas tree. I also have a bunch of handmade decorations. No one knows where life will take us years from now, but it will be great hanging them and remembering those friends.

Anyway before I go too deep into emotional shit, I better focus on what this blog is about: cooking. Stuffed cabbage is a staple dish in Eastern European cuisine. It’s a dish that is being served during major events or Holidays. Growing up in Romania, I can’t remember a single Christmas without stuffed cabbage. Whether you call them sarmale, töltött káposzta, golumpki, dolma or holubtsi it doesn’t really matter since they are all basically the same – leaves of some sort (cabbage, grape, etc) stuffed with meat (pork, beef, lamb, etc) and rice. There are several variations of this dish all over the Balkans. Some prefer them with blanched cabbage leaves, some with sour cabbage leaves. Others use grape leaves or even cherry leaves. Pork or beef? It doesn’t really matter it will taste good. If you can’t get a hold of sour cabbage leaves, just use blanched cabbage leaves (sweet cabbage leaves as we call them in Romania and Hungary) instead. When the rolls are prepared just cook them in a half tomato juice half water concoction. Adding dill to the mix is pretty common as well. If you are a fan of parsley you can add some to the filling. Also, any smoked meat will do, so if you can’t find smoked pork hock, you can use smoked dry sausage or smoked ham. It adds that smoky-sweet flavor that contrasts well with the sourness of the cabbage.

My mom and grandma sometimes prepare the cabbage rolls in a special clay cooker in the oven, but I found that cooking them in a cast iron Dutch oven yields similar results. My family usually serves them with fresh bread and sour cream, but it’s pretty common to serve them with a side of mamaliga (polenta) or mashed potatoes. The choice is yours. Poftă bună! Jó étvágyat!

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Sarmale)

Yields 30-40 rolls
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cook time: 60 minutes

Ingredients

5 TBS canola oil (or sunflower seed)
1 large onion (about 1/2 lb), finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1/4 tsp ground caraway seeds
2 TBS chicken stock (or water)
2.2 lbs ground pork
11 oz white long grain rice, rinsed
2 medium grated carrots (about 1/2 lb)
1 1/2 TBS paprika
1 TBS salt
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 head pickled cabbage (or 20-25 whole sour cabbage leaves)
1 smoked pork hock (about 1/2 lb)
2 bay leaves

Instructions

Heat three tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil easily slides across the pan add onions and sauté for 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 5 more minutes. Stir frequently to make sure the garlic doesn’t burn.
Season with caraway and add stock. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 more minutes stirring every now and then.
When the onions become translucent, remove from the heat and let the mixture cool down.
In a large bowl, mix ground pork, rice and carrots. Season with paprika, salt and pepper. When the sautéed onions are cold enough to handle add them to the mix along with the rest of the oil (2 tablespoons)
Using your hand combine thoroughly until everything is well blended. Set aside.
Cut large leaves in half, removing the core and thick stems. Chop them roughly and set aside. Make sure you have 30-35 leaves ready to be stuffed. Don’t discard the rest, we’ll use them later.
Place a tablespoon or so of meat filling in the middle of the cabbage leaf and roll creating a cone (see pic). Make sure it’s rolled relatively tightly. Fold the other end and seal by pressing the cabbage leaf inwards.
Cut the meat off the smoked hock and roughly chop into bite size pieces. Keep the bone.
Sprinkle a third of the chopped cabbage leaves and a few pieces of smoked meat on the bottom of a cast iron Dutch oven.
Place the cabbage rolls in the Dutch oven with the pointy ends towards the middle. Keep the middle free of cabbage rolls. Add another layer of chopped cabbage leaves and then repeat laying the rolls until you run out of them.
Place the smoked hock bone in the middle, sprinkle with more chopped cabbage leaves.
Add enough water to barely cover the top layer of cabbage rolls, add the bay leaves and then lay a few whole cabbage leaves to keep the moisture in.
Cover the Dutch oven with a lid and place it on the stove. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
Serve cabbage rolls with sour cream and fresh bread or mamaliga (polenta).

Notes

The amount of oil you add to the filling depends on the fat content of the ground pork. 2 tablespoons are recommended for 80/20 pork (20% fat content). For anything less than 20% fat, add an extra tablespoon of oil.
There are several ways to roll the stuffed cabbage, but my grandma’s method (creating cones) has worked perfectly for me.
Place cabbage rolls as close to each other as possible. That way they will not open while they are cooking.
I used a 24 liter (4 1/2 US quarts) Dutch oven for 38 cabbage rolls. Romanian cabbage rolls are smaller than Polish rolls, so the high number of rolls can be deceiving.

Beet Carpaccio with Citrus Vinaigrette

December 18, 2015 by Aurel Pop in Salad, Appetizer

As I was going through my recent blog posts, I realized that over the last couple of months, my focus has been on hearty traditional dishes. I posted my good friend Guy’s Piquant Pulled Pork, a recipe that made it to a few local online publications, followed by ethnic staples like Chicken Khao Soi, Romanian meatballs, and last, but not least, my dear friends Ame and Hanna’s Ethiopian Lentils from the Cooking with Friends series. After so many filling and calorie rich meals I thought it would be a good time to post a lighter dish. I thought of salads, but to be honest, salads aren’t my strong suit. I like them, it’s just that I eat them as a side dish rather than as a meal. Also, since fall has finally arrived in Austin, I was in the mood for something more suitable for colder weather. I opened my recipe notebook and stumbled upon a recipe I developed about a year ago - Roasted Beet Carpaccio.

I LOVE beets. Although as a kid I only ate them pickled, I found later in life that roasted beets are equally delicious. In my mind, beets are totally worth having my kitchen looking like a crime scene and having my hands stained with beet juice. In Romania, pickled beets are very common. In fact, we consider pickled vegetables to be salad. If you happen to be eating in Romania and find something like salata de varza, salata de rosii, salata de castraveti or salata de sfecla on the menu, don’t expect it to be a proper salad in the traditional sense of the word. More likely than not, you’ll end up getting various combinations of cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers and beets, all pickled in vinegar. We eat them with our main dishes (they make a hell of a side dish for schnitzel and mashed potatoes).

What I recently learned about beets is that the greens are edible, too. Up until not long ago, I would discard the greens without thinking twice. I was a fool! I didn’t know how good they were. All those disposed beet greens would’ve made a great side dish. They can be sautéed or just blanched and then dressed. Soooo good! And I’m not one to throw the expression “soooo good” around when it comes to greens. I eat a variety of greens, but I can’t really say that they are all THAT good.

In the spirit of the Romanian definition of salad, I’ll consider this dish a salad as well. It’s perfect for when you want to impress your guests during the colder months. I sometimes serve the beets warm, but even at room temperature or refrigerated they will be tasty. It’s up to you to decide what you like better. If you find the dressing to be too tart for your liking when you taste it on its own, worry not. The sweetness of the beets, the smokiness and pepperiness of the arugula, and the nuttiness of the walnuts all balance out the tartness of the vinaigrette. Try it and tell me what you think. Enjoy!

BEET CARPACCIO WITH CITRUS VINAIGRETTE

Serves 4-6
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

4-5 beets with greens (about 1 bunch)
3 TBS olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups arugula
1/4 cup goat feta (or goat cheese)
1/4 cup roasted walnuts
1 orange, peeled and sectioned
olive oil, for topping
fresh ground pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste

Citrus vinaigrette

1 TBS apple cider vinegar
2 TBS fresh lemon juice (1 small lemon)
3 TBS fresh orange juice (1 small orange)
1/2 tsp orange zest
3/4 cup olive oil
1 TBS honey
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground white pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400F (200C) degrees.
Remove the greens from the beets cutting off and discarding the woody stems. Using a brush clean the beets thoroughly, leaving the skin on. Rinse greens and set aside.
In a bowl, mix beet roots, olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss until the beets are evenly coated.
Wrap each beet in aluminum foil. Place beets on the upper rack of the oven and cook for 40-45 minutes or until they can easily be pierced with the tip of a knife.
While the beets are roasting in the oven, prepare an ice bath for the beet greans by filling a medium sized bowl with 1 cup ice and 4 cups cold water.
Fill a medium sized pot halfway with water. Add a tablespoon of salt and bring to a boil over high heat.
When the water is boiling add the beet greens and submerge them under the boiling water. Cook for no more than 2 minutes.
Using a sieve or a slotted spoon, remove the greens from the pot and transfer them into the ice bath. This will stop the cooking process and keep the beet greens crisp and colorful.
Place all the ingredients for the citrus vinaigrette in a jar. Put the lid on and shake well for about 30 seconds. Set aside and shake again before using it.
When the beets are cooked, remove them from the oven, carefully open the aluminum foil and let them cool down.
In the meantime, remove the greens from the ice bath and chop them into bite sizes.
Peel the orange, section it and remove the skins from the slices. Set aside.
Place arugula on a large serving plate. Sprinkle with olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.
When the beets are cold enough to handle, peel them. The skins should slip off easily, but feel free to use a knife for the more stubborn spots.
Using a mandolin, slice the beets into thin slices (about 2-3mm thin).
Place beets on the arugula bed. Sprinkle beet greens, feta, walnuts and orange all over the beets. Drizzle with vinaigrette and serve cold or at room temperature. Enjoy!

NoteS

The time it takes to cook the beets depends on their size. The beets I used were the size of a tennis ball and it took 40 minutes.
When opening the aluminum foil, be careful not to get burned with the hot stem that built up inside the packets.
You can serve the beets warm, but be careful not to burn yourself when peeling them.

Ame and Hanna's Ethiopian Lentils (Misir Wot)

December 09, 2015 by Aurel Pop in Cooking with Friends, Main Dish

Misir Wot (lentils stew), Doro Wot (chicken stew), Gomen (Ethiopian collard green) and Beef Tibs served on injera bread. — Misir Wot (lentils stew), Doro Wot (chicken stew), Gomen (Ethiopian collard green) and Beef Tibs served on injera bread.

Working for a large multinational company is not always as bad as some people make it out to be. Of course the 9 to 5 schedule, the politics, and the bureaucracy are annoying and exhausting, but there are a lot of perks that counterbalance these obvious disadvantages. Things like access to the latest technologies, working with the smartest people in the industry and cultural diversity are just a few that come to my mind. By far the favorite part of my work is getting to interact with people from all over the world and learning about their culture. When working in such environments you inevitably get to learn about what to avoid doing when interacting with others and you learn to be more tolerant. You learn not to take things personally and to accept that cultural differences exist and they are completely fine. For example, just because Europeans like myself are more direct doesn’t mean we are rude. That’s just who we are and each culture has its norm. We are different and that’s what makes this world such an amazing place.

I've got to meet Ame on my first day of work here in Austin. He was the one who introduced me to the small Romanian group of engineers that had already been working in town. My first impression of him was great. I knew he understood the struggle of moving to a completely new place and knew exactly how hard it was to leave everything behind and start from scratch. Then came the first project we worked on together. He was my mentor. He annoyed me with all kinds of questions that I thought were insignificant and at one point I thought he was just picking on me, but then I realized that he was just like me: a perfectionist. He wanted me to understand why some things were happening the way they were. Basically he was trying to make me a better engineer. Then he moved to a different group and I was pretty sad to see him leave. The sadness didn’t last too long though, because soon thereafter I joined the same department. Even though now we are in different groups, we still interact on a daily basis and every morning when I walk to my desk I see him greeting me with his big smile, asking me about my love life.

I’ve known Ame for four years now. The two words that always come to mind when I think of him are smiling and curious. His joy is contagious and no matter how bad your day is he’ll brighten it. He is also genuinely interested in everything- from work to your personal life. Ever since I started my blog, Ame has been one of my most loyal readers. If I was away and skipped a post he would walk over to my desk and remind me that I need to write. When I told him about my idea of starting a monthly series called Cooking with Friends he got more excited than me about it. He told me he would share a few of his family’s recipes with me and have me over to his house for lunch so he could introduce me to his boys.

He is the one who introduced me to Ethiopian cuisine. He took me to his favorite Ethiopian restaurant and introduced me to Winnie, an equally happy and smiley Ethiopian lady who happens to have the best Ethiopian restaurant in Austin called A Taste of Ethiopia. We went there for lunch and we talked about the Ethiopian way of living. I learned about how important religion and family are in their culture. He told me the story of how he met Hanna, his beautiful wife. When he saw her for the first time at a church event he knew she is the one before even talking to her. I was blown away by his sincerity and I could see that he was so proud of that moment. Hanna and Ame now have three extremely cute boys Ezra, Luke and Nathan. Ame and Hanna shared their family's Misir Wot and Beef Tibs recipes with me. For now I’ll only post the Misir Wot one, but keep an eye on the blog because their Beef Tibs recipe is also going to feature soon.

Luke prefers gomen with "white" (sour cream) — Luke prefers *gomen* with "white" (sour cream)

If Hungarians have paprika, Chinese have 5 spices, Japanese have shichimi togarachi, Ethiopians have berbere as their most commonly used spice. It’s the flavor backbone of Ethiopian cuisine- a combination of chili, garlic, ginger, ajwain and a medley of other spices. It has a very specific and intense flavor and, if used in large quantities, will make your dish extremely spicy. It’s easy to recognize it due to its bright red color and fiery taste.

Ethiopian food culture is defined by hospitality and abundance, and Ame, Hanna and the kids made us realize that from the moment we stepped foot in their home. Ethiopian cuisine is not as fancy as let’s say French or Japanese. It’s more of a home-style cooking just like my own Eastern European cuisine. What Ethiopian cuisine excels at is transforming simple ingredients like lentils, spinach and cheap cuts of meat into elevated dishes that seem a lot more complicated to cook than they actually are. Ethiopian cuisine is built around heavily season meats (beef, chicken and lamb) and vegetable stews called wot served on Ethiopia’s national bread called injera. Injera is a spongy flatbread made out of fermented Teff grains. It resembles sourdough bread in flavor, only that it’s a lot more sour.

Ame and Hanna in traditional Ethiopian clothing

Ethiopian food is served atop injera on a platter and is meant to be shared. A few dishes are served at a time and are eaten with your hands using pieces of injera to scoop up each bite. This makes eating a very intimate experience. Ame and his family made the experience even more interesting by serving us Ethiopian coffee at the end of the feast. His family has a farm in Ethiopia and every time he goes home he brings some of the best coffee beans his family grows. Hope you enjoy Ame and Hanna’s recipe!

Ame and Hanna's Ethiopian Lentils (Misir Wot)

Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed
2 TBS vegetable oil (or Ethiopian niter kibbeh)
1/2 medium-sized onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups water
1 1/2 TBS berbere (more for spicier dish)
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

Place lentils in a small bowl and rinse vigorously with cold tap water 2 or three times. Cover with water and let them soak for about 10 minutes.
In a medium sauce pan heat oil over medium-high heat. When the oil easily slides across the pan add the onions and garlic. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes until the onions become translucent.
Add 1/4 cup of water and cook for another 3 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add berbere, stir well and cook for 5 more minutes. Add a tablespoon of water if needed.
Drain the lentils and add them to the pan along with the salt and the rest of the water.
Bring to a boil, cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Let it simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring every now and then. You're done!

Notes

Rinsing the lentils under cold water helps reduce the likelihood of heartburn.
According to Ame, the traditional Ethiopian way of sautéing the onions is by first cooking them with a bit of water. The oil is added when the onions are halfway cooked. We tried the recipe both ways and found that sautéing the onions in oil gives the best flavor.
Berbere and injera can be found in ethnic stores. Injera can be stored in the refrigerator for a week. It also, reheats well in the microwave.