Hilbet

The pulses are ground to a powder raw, and the cooked powder is whipped to a cream.

Vegan.

Ingredients

200 g dried fava beans
100 g red lentils
2 tablespoons fenugreek seeds
4 garlic cloves
2 cm ginger, peeled
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
about 900 ml water
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons awaze, as on its own page, to finish
2 injera, as on its own page, to serve

Method

THE PULSES ARE GROUND TO A POWDER RAW, AND THE COOKED POWDER IS WHIPPED TO A CREAM. Its article is 918 bytes and the method is all there: it is made from fava beans, fenugreek, lentil and other spices THAT ARE GROUND INTO A POWDER, and THE HILBET POWDER IS THEN COOKED AND WHIPPED TO MAKE A CREAM-LIKE TEXTURE.
WHICH IS WHAT SEPARATES IT FROM THE OTHER TWO PULSE DISHES HERE. Shiro, as on its own page, cooks pulse flour into a stew and leaves it. Shahan ful, as on its own page, boils whole beans and crushes them coarse afterwards. This one grinds them before they ever meet water, and then beats air into the result.
SOAK NOTHING. The beans and lentils go into the grinder dry, with the fenugreek. Soaked pulses cannot be milled.
GRIND THEM AS FINE AS YOUR MACHINE WILL GO, AND SIEVE. Anything coarse will stay gritty through the whole cooking, because there is no long simmer here to soften it.
THE FENUGREEK IS A THIRD OF THE SPICE AND IT IS BITTER. Two tablespoons in three hundred grams of pulses. It is the taste people recognise and it is easy to overdo.
WHISK THE POWDER INTO COLD WATER BEFORE ANY HEAT. A thin slurry, lump-free. Tipped into hot water it seizes, the same way shiro does.
COOK IT OUT FOR TWENTY MINUTES, STIRRING. Raw pulse flour tastes raw, and fenugreek especially so. It will thicken within five minutes and then needs the rest of the time for the flavour alone.
NOW BEAT IT, OFF THE HEAT, AND KEEP BEATING. This is the step the article names and nothing else in this country does: a whisk, three or four minutes, with the oil added in a thread. It goes from a paste to something paler and lighter that holds a peak.
SPREAD IT IN A SHALLOW BOWL AND PUT THE SAUCE IN THE MIDDLE. The article is specific about the arrangement: AT THE CENTER OF THE HILBET IT WILL HAVE CHILI PEPPER-BASED SAUCE. The cream is deliberately mild so the middle can be fierce.
IT IS VEGAN AND THE ARTICLE SAYS SO OUTRIGHT -- IT IS A VEGAN FOOD -- so the oil stays oil and no niter kibbeh comes near it. Eaten with injera, as on its own page.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Ethiopia · All recipes