Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Lentil Stew)

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: Ethiopian Cuisine
Dish: Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Lentil Stew)

Ethiopian cuisine is very vegetarian friendly. There are a number of vegetable based and lentil based dishes that are perfect options for vegetarians and vegans. Today I have a lentil based dish called Mesir Wat. Wat is like stew and Mesir Wat loosely means lentil stew.
Red lentils aka Masoor dal is cooked until thick and creamy with berbere spice making this a very hearty and comforting dish. Addition of berbere spice makes this dish taste amazing.

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Ethiopian Tomato Salad (and Berbere spice recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: Ethiopian Cuisine
Dish: Tomato Salad

My theme for this week's blogging marathon is trying 3 dishes from either European, African or Oceanian cuisines. I wanted to try some dishes from African cuisine, but after reading through the list of regions and dishes on wiki, I decided to stick to Ethiopian Cuisine. Ethiopia is a country that is located in Horn of Africa, the eastern most projection of African continent. It was interesting to know that Ethiopia is one of the oldest location for human life known to scientists.
Coming to Ethiopian cuisine, it consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes, in the form of wat, served on a large sourdough based flat bread called injera. Also Ethiopians eat with their right hand just as Indians do and the spices used are also very similar.

Today I have two Ethiopian recipes: Berbere spice mix -- this is very similar to our very own garam masala and is essential to make maby Ethiopian dishes. I already have a recipe for berbere spice, but this one's a little different and it is Chef Marcus Samuelsson's recipe. Second recipe is a simple and refreshing Tomato salad.

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