Ethiopian · Main
Kik Alicha
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan option
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, aromatics blooming from the first bite, trailing gentle sweetness.
Ingredients
- 400 g yellow split peas, rinsed until the water runs clear
- 1.2 litres water
- 500 g red onion, chopped fine
- 80 g niter kibbeh, or 80 ml sunflower oil on fasting days
- 25 g garlic, pounded
- 20 g ginger, pounded
- 6 g ground turmeric
- 3 g korarima, ground
- 2 green chillies, slit lengthways
- 9 g salt
The skills inside
Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth
Allergen screen
Found: dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Simmer the split peas in the water, skimming the grey foam for the first ten minutes, until they slump into mush under the back of a spoon, about 45 minutes. 45 min
- Meanwhile cook the onion dry in a wide pot over low heat, stirring, until it is limp, translucent and halved in volume with no colour anywhere; the moment an edge goes gold you have gone too far.
- Stir in the niter kibbeh, garlic, ginger and turmeric and cook until the fat runs clear gold and the turmeric loses its chalky raw smell.
- Tip in the peas with their liquid and simmer, stirring up from the base, until the wat mounds on a spoon and then slumps slowly, around 20 minutes. 20 min
- Salt now, drop in the slit chillies and korarima, and pull it off the heat while it is still loose enough to pour, since it sets firm as it cools.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth 73 recipes
- It is held below a rolling boil for the whole time. Agitation drives fat and fine protein into the liquid as an emulsion, and nothing skimmed afterwards will take them back out.
- The grey foam that rises in the first minutes is lifted off and discarded rather than stirred back in.
- Fat is taken from the surface where it gathers, the pot moved off the centre of the heat if that is what it takes to collect it in one place.
- The liquid is visibly clearer at the end than it was at the start: it is possible to see down into it.
- Nothing lifted off goes back in. What was skimmed is discarded, not tipped back once the ladle is full.
Where it goes wrong The pot was allowed to boil, usually while something else was being attended to. Fat and protein emulsify into the liquid under agitation and cannot be lifted off afterwards, so the finished broth stays cloudy and greasy however patiently it is skimmed from then on.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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