Week 49 -- Kik Alicha

Let me start by saying I know this is not authentic.  I do my best, but I am an American girl who has never been to Africa, though I have enjoyed this dish at many Ethiopian restaurants.  It is my favorite of all the Ethiopian stews. 

Kik Alicha is a mild but flavorful yellow split pea stew.  (Alichas are mild yellow stews, kik are yellow split peas; you can substitute lentils for messir alicha.)  It is traditionally served and eaten on a teff flatbread called injera.  I love injera.  It's one of my very favorite foods in the world.  One of the great tragedies of my cooking life is that I have never been able to make an acceptable injera, though it's not for lack of trying.  Thankfully, this stew is also great on its own or eaten with millet (although then you have to use a fork instead of just scooping it up with flatbread).

This weekend we didn't have to resort to eating it with forks.  Mom has been making wonderful red lentil flatbread that we knew was amazing for burritos, but now we know it can substitute for injera, also! 

Again, though this stew is great on its own, I like to make it with my second-favorite Ethiopian dish -- gomen.  It's easy to make.  Double the seasoning mixture and put half with your split peas and half with chopped and cooked greens.  I love it with collards, but spinach works, too.  You can start with fresh or frozen.

I should mention that I love making green split pea soup, but I find yellow split peas much more temperamental.  I always either scorch the bottom or boil over.  This time, my first try making them on an electric stove top, I managed to do both.  Be watchful.  Also, I've said it before, but it bears repeating.  Slice your ginger against the grain first, then mince it with the grain.  If you go with the grain first, you won't be able to mince it small enough.

Kik alicha with collard gomen on red lentil flatbread.

You can see in this picture how thick this stew is. 
It should be almost a porridge consistency.
The black flecks are the nigella sativa seeds.

Kik Alicha

1 pound dry yellow split peas, rinsed
6+ cups water
1/2 onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 inch ginger, minced
1/4 tsp turmeric
pinch black pepper
1/4 tsp nigella sativa (black cumin seeds), optional
1/4 tsp ajwain, optional
miso to taste

1. Put yellow split peas and water in a large stock pot.  Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer.  Keep an eye on them and add water as needed.  Let simmer 1 to 1 1/2 hours until tender to mushy.
2. In skillet, saute all seasoning ingredients in water.  Let cook down until soft and mushy.
3. Mix seasonings with split peas.  Taste for seasonings and add miso as desired.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Week 32 -- Split Pea Soup Powder

Another week of powdered soup!  I did post a split pea soup a few months ago.  This one is a little different with more of a cheesy flavor.

As with the powdered broccoli soup, to make this a powder, you spread the soup out in a thin layer on lined dehydrator trays, dehydrate, and then blend the flakes/chunks into powder.

I've learned from past experience that you do need to puree this soup before dehydrating.  The split peas, no matter how soft they are after cooking, are very hard after dehydrating so they are difficult to blend into powder.  The dehydrated flakes/chunks are yummy to snack on even without rehydrating, but if you don't blend the soup first, the split peas will be too crunchy to snack on.

If you have a silicone spillover lid, this is a time to use it.  If you don't have one, it's worth the investment.  I paid about $8 for mine online, and it is priceless.  The foam from the cooking peas bubbles up through, but it stays on the lid instead of going all over your stove top.

Split Pea Soup Powder

1/4 red onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb dried split peas, rinsed
water to generously cover
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp miso
1 Tbsp lemon juice

1. Saute onion in a little water until soft.
2. Add garlic, split peas, and water.  Cover (with silicone spillover lid, if available) and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook until split peas are mushy (about 45 minutes).  Check occasionally to make sure the water doesn't all boil out.
3.  Turn off heat and let soup cool a little.  Add nutritional yeast, miso, and lemon juice.  Blend with immersion blender (or transfer to regular blender -- you may need to add more water this way).
4.  Spread on lined dehydrator trays.  Dehydrate until completely dry.  Blend into powder.

Makes about 6 servings.

Week 11 -- Split Pea Soup #1

St. Patrick's Day is coming up this week, and, though it's not one of my favorite holidays, I do like to eat color-coded foods for holidays.  Hence, this week is a nice bright green soup.

While I ate this soup fresh this week, I sometimes turn this recipe into instant soup powder.  To do that, make the soup with less water.  Puree the finished soup (trust me -- it will rehydrate much better and it will grind easier if you puree first).  Spread the soup on dehydrator trays.  I have liners for my trays, but if you just have mesh, spread the soup onto parchment paper over the mesh.  Dehydrate until totally dry.  Then crumble the soup and blend again to make a powder.  This powder is great for travelling or keeping at work for those days you could just use cup of nice homemade soup.  Simply add hot water and let it sit for a few minutes.

Also, I know many people now have pressure cookers to make a soup like this cook super fast.  I don't have one, so these are the old-fashion instructions.  If you're old school like me, let me introduce you to the greatest thing ever for cooking beans -- a silicone lid spill-stopper!  I splurged and spent a whole $8 for this thing online, and it was worth every penny.  I hate how pulses boil over and get starchy gunk all over my stove top, and split peas are some of the worst offenders.  The spill stopper keeps the foam from going everywhere.  I have it featured in the photos below.

One last funny story:  In the directions below I mention to add a little more water to soup you are saving as leftovers, because it thickens up as it sits.  I learned this one the hard way.  One day I had my soup the perfect consistency, nice and thick, and I poured it into my jar and brought it to work. 
When it was time for lunch, I opened the jar, put a paper towel over the top (I always do this), started the microwave, and went to the bathroom (I have timed my lunch time bathroom visit to coincide perfectly with heating my soup).  I came back to find that half of my soup had leapt from the jar!  Thankfully, it knocked off the paper towel and most of it landed on said towel, so I was able to scoop it back into the jar and eat it (never waste soup this yummy!).  Learn from me and thin your soup a little.

Ahh, a nice big chunk of ginger!  That really adds flavor to this soup.
I actually only used half of that chunk and saved the rest for another meal later this week.
When mincing ginger, don't forget to cut against the grain first. 
Then it's much easier to mince the rest of the way.

Here is the spill stopper, ready to work hard!  

The clock is cut off in this photo, but this is exactly one minute later.
With a regular lid, this foam would have been streaming down over my nice clean stove top.

And there are some jars of soup, ready to go for lunches this week,
trying to blend in with the greenery in my kitchen.

Split Pea Soup #1

1 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch fresh ginger, minced
1 pound green split peas
8-9 cups water
1 tsp turmeric
black pepper
1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
2 tsp miso paste

1. Saute the onion in a large soup pot with a little bit of water.  Add the garlic and ginger.

2. Rinse the split peas and add them to the pot with 8 cups of water.  Let it come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer for about 40 minutes.  Check to make sure the peas are nicely mushy.

3. Add the turmeric, pepper, nutritional yeast, and miso paste. 

4. If you are eating the soup right away, you should be good to go.  If you are saving it, you will want to water it down a little bit as it will thicken as it sits.

Makes about 4 servings.