Doro Wat (with Injera) inspired by Cutting for Stone

Abraham Vergese's Cutting For Stone is a grand, romantic medical and family novel which is mostly set in Ethiopia.  I love Ethiopian food, and Doro Wat is probably my favorite dish.  Google tells me that Doro Wat is often referred to as the Ethiopian National Dish, and I have seen it described this way on menus.  It is a firey hot stewed chicken, served with hard boiled eggs and injera - a  crepe like pancake made with fermented sour batter that is served with all Ethiopian food.  The injera serves as the utensil with which to eat the food.  As the main character Marion comments in the book, you can tell an Ethiopian native from a foreigner as to whether there hands are clean after eating Wat - for Marion, he noted that his hands were clean while his fathers were stained red at the finger tips.  Doro Wat is mentioned a couple of times in the book, most memorably for me at the beginning, when a young woman doctor Hema, arrives back to Addis Ababa and the hospital she works at after a long and harried (including near plane crash) journey from India, and immediately requests Doro Wat at her arrival.   I also attempted some injera, but did not have the time to ferment the dough so used some soda water to give it the characteristic bubbles.  This recipe took a lot of effort, as before you can make the Wat you need to make a spice paste (Berbere) and spiced clarified butter (Nitter Kibbeh), but the end result was tasty, though not as tasty, I must admit, as in an Ethiopian restaurant . 

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Indian Pudding with Wild Maine Blueberry Sauce and Olive Kitteredge

Maine! I have spent my summers in York Beach, Maine my whole life. It is definitely my favorite state, so I was thrilled to pick up Olive Kitteredge, a Pulitzer Prize winning book about the people of Crosby, Maine and mostly Olive Kitteredge, a grumpy middle school teacher. The quintessential Maine food is of course lobster and lobster Rolls, but it is my opinion that lobster is best eaten in Maine, especially lobster rolls, so I wanted to stay away from that. The next thing that popped into my mind when I thought about Maine food was Indian Pudding, which is a traditional New England dessert that is hard to find these days. Indian Pudding is kind of a stodgy dessert, with a molasses bite, which I think fits Olive’s personality to a T. I have always associated Indian Pudding with Maine because Indian Pudding was my mom’s favorite dessert, whenever it was available she ordered it (or the equally stodgy grapenut pudding) and it was also her favorite ice cream flavor at our favorite (and amazing!) ice cream place in York Beach, Brown’s. I have since taken over carrying the torch for Indian Pudding ice cream and I always order it with a scoop of Maine Blueberry ice cream on top. A great combination which inspired this traditional Indian Pudding with Blueberry Sauce (and I tossed in some whipped cream for the hell of it.) My Mom would have loved this book as well -- Olive is the type of woman she would have kibitzed with at the local library. This one is for you Mom, miss you.

Note: I have been stuck in New England for a couple of posts now, next time we will be heading to Ethiopia (Cutting for Stone) and the spicy chicken stew – Doro Wat!
For book review and recipe

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Irish Whiskey Spiked Boston Cream Pie and The Given Day

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane is one of the best books I have read this year. It takes place in Boston, my hometown, during the Boston Police Strike of 1919. An obvious choice for a recipe to go with this book is Boston Cream Pie, which is no named because it was created by a chef at the Parker House Hotel on Tremont Street in the 1850s. I decided to "Boston up" the recipe by adding Irish Whiskey to the pastry cream and the chocolate glaze. This final cake was my second try, it was worth the effort. For book review and recipe,

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Up Next

Coming this weekend: The Given Day by Dennis Lehane and Irish Whiskey Spiked Boston Cream Pie.