Recipe Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Spicy Lentil Stew)

[Elawin]

This dish is popular in Ethiopia and Eritrea. There are quite a lot of recipes for Mesir Wat on the internet, all of which are slightly different and most of which claim to be authentic. This recipe is a hybrid, and it’s how I like it. It is very fragrant, filling, and warming.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45-50 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

400 g red lentils
2 tbsp olive oil or rapeseed oil
1 large leek, finely chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, to taste, very finely chopped
1 tsp each of ground cardamom, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, nutmeg, and turmeric
1 tsp dried crushed chilli (or more according to taste)
5 whole cloves
½ tsp black pepper
1 sweet potato, diced
1.5 litres water
Salt, to taste
200 g baby spinach or other green salad leaves, chopped
Watercress to garnish
Lemon wedges
Flat breads of choice

Method:

1. Rinse the lentils well, then boil for 15 minutes, and then drain. Rinse them in cold water, and drain again.
2. Meanwhile, in a large lidded saucepan, heat the oil over a medium heat, add the leek and the garlic, and fry gently without browning and stirring occasionally for approx. 10 minutes until softening.
3. Add all the spices to the pan and continue cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes, stirring all the time.
4. Add the lentils and the sweet potato to the pan with the water and salt to taste. Bring to the boil, stir well, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Remove the lid from the pan and continue to simmer for a further 20 minutes or so until the liquid starts to thicken.
6. Add the chopped salad leaves, stir well, garnish with the watercress, and then serve with the lemon wedges and flat breads of choice.

Notes:

1. If the liquid is still tastes watery, dish up the lentils and the vegetables, then turn up the heat and boil down the liquid for about 5 minutes. It should have the consistency of a thin gravy and be full of flavour.
2. Traditionally this dish would be served with injera, which takes about 3 days to prepare. Flat breads are considerably quicker!

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

6-8 cloves garlic, to taste, very finely chopped
1 tsp each of ground cardamom, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, nutmeg, and turmeric

A very strong entry that highlights the garlic. I also really like this combination of spices: it's distinctly African as it walks that sweet/savory line. Very nice.

 

[Duck59]

If you can get hold of berbere, that gives it the quintessential Ethiopian (or Eritrean) zing. Berbere is a mix of spices based on chilli and if you're lucky enough to have an African food shop near you, that's probably the best place to get it. There are a few online sellers, but as ever, caveat emptor!

 

[Elawin]

If you can get hold of berbere, that gives it the quintessential Ethiopian (or Eritrean) zing. Berbere is a mix of spices based on chilli and if you're lucky enough to have an African food shop near you, that's probably the best place to get it. There are a few online sellers, but as ever, caveat emptor!

Thanks, @Duck59 I actually have three recipes for berberé, one of which is from the congo cookbook, and two are from American sources. Unfortunately I didn't have all the spices to make any of them as per recipe but, having read the notes from the congo cookbook about which spices are essential and having looked at some of the recipes online, I went for the hybrid method. It's a pity my late cousin decided to retire from Saudi to Spain instead of the UK - his widow is Ethiopian! Perhaps I should try to get in touch with her, although it's been several years since we met each other on one of their whirlwind trips to visit closer relatives up north, so she may not remember me. Where I live has quite a large African community, but there is only one shop that claims to be specifically African, and West African at that. Otherwise it's a bit of a trek. I'm a bit wary of buying things online unless I know they are exactly what I want.

 

[Duck59]

If anyone can bear with me, a brief(ish) story about when I worked in Ethiopia.

Being a vegetarian, I was always on the lookout for stuff to try and one thing I liked was shiro, which is essentially powdered chick pea that you can use by adding boiling water to. It's nice with crusty bread on its own or you can add it to a meal. When I finished the work I was doing, the very nice people in my office gave me a load of presents, including some freshly roasted coffee beans. Among the other stuff was a big pack of shiro.

Now I rather fancied this, but it suddenly dawned on me that turning up at Heathrow with a huge bag of white powder might not be the best idea I'd ever had. Okay, it wouldn't have taken too much testing to discover what the stuff was, but I thought I'd give it a miss. In the end, I donated the bag to the VSO field office in Addis Ababa.

 

[Elawin]

Now I rather fancied this, but it suddenly dawned on me that turning up at Heathrow with a huge bag of white powder might not be the best idea I'd ever had. Okay, it wouldn't have taken too much testing to discover what the stuff was, but I thought I'd give it a miss. In the end, I donated the bag to the VSO field office in Addis Ababa.

Mind you, I have had occasion in the past to carry proof that some of the drugs I had in my luggage really had been prescribed by my doctors.....