Does it have the big twisty crust?
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From that article:
chickpea powder
I don’t guess gram (besan) flower is quite the same thing, but it’s used to make shimbera asa, which might be my very favorite Ethiopian dish. The powder (shimbera) is mixed with water and rolled into little dumplings (asa, or “fish”, which I guess they’re supposed to replace e.g. for fasting purposes). Then those go into a kai wat (red stew, i.e. the spicy stuff). It’s more labor intensive than other Ethiopian dishes, so we don’t make it at home too often (it’s quickest to whip up some shiro wat, sans onions, & also based on gram/besan IIRC).
The powder can be used as gluten-free flour in pasta and baked goods.
I had a recipe for a baked “omelette”, more like a savory Dutch baby. I think I’m the only one who liked it much & it feeds at least 2, so I don’t make it often.
ETA (Save button got away from me):
We eat a vegan diet for much (really, most) of the year based on the fasting calendar. The meat is not what I miss & if it were completely up to me, I’d just as soon not even resume eating it…
“There’s this consensus that ‘being vegetarian is great’, but then we sort of forget that cheese is actually pretty carbon intensive,” says Marbach
…it’s actually the dairy thar I miss the most of all. Some feta in my tabouli, cheese atop some pasta, a fried egg & some instant noodles etc.
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hmm, the classic pasty had that big twisty crust because a miner with black coal covered hands could hold that, and eat all the filled part without ingesting more coal than necessary.
Like this one from Wikipedia, which is a cornish pasty:
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i have been using besan lately in making Indian style dishes. just made these the other night and they were fab! the distinction between gram, besan and something called chana dal gram i don’t fully understand. chickpea powder is now entered the chat and i am even more confuse!
i will stick to the besan flour and just add more water.
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Chana is split pea, maybe it’s a mix?
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Most of the pasties around here today have smaller crusts that wouldn’t hold up to be used as a handle, sadly.
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Probably makes sense (hygiene is now easy to maintain ), but I do like a proper cornish pasty because I eat it with clean hands.
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This goes right on the list, thx…
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chana dal is split brown chickpeas and (according to this source), chickpea flour is from white chickpeas, and not as fine, hence the need for more water in certain batters and dishes.
i have also seen lentil flour referred to as gram flour, adding to my confusion when trying some recipes i find.
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Weird, they’re called yellow split peas often here, but I’ve looked more and yeah, it’s the smaller chickpea, TIL.
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[wipes some drool off the keyboard]
Oh wow I must look this up.
Shiro Wot is my absolute fave. I have often said to Woinee, who runs the Taste of Ethiopia in Austin, that I could die happy in a vat of it.
But maybe I have multiple favorite Ethiopian dishes.
I love proper injera since I can eat teff but have difficulty eating wheat.
Thanks for this new thing to explore.
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I haven’t eaten at Taste of Ethiopia, but Habesha here is also pretty good. Ethiopian dishes are so good
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In Austin, I personally prefer Habesha up at I-35 & 2222/290. Taste of Ethiopia had better service (the owner’s sister really doted on us), but we just weren’t as pleased with the food. 
The food at Meganagna (way up on Wells Branch) was in-between. But de gustibus!
We haven’t tried Aster’s (I-35 @ Dean Keeton), but purely FYI, Aster (no longer the owner) ran The Ethiopian Restaurant a long time ago (it closed around the time Clinton was 1st elected). From then until some time after we moved away in '02, there were no Ethiopian restaurants in Austin - someone served it on Fridays at St. Elias Church downtown (it was kind of the “pan-Orthodox” church then), and someone else would prepare it once a week at World Beat Cafe (Nigerian restaurant near UT, 1st place I tried joloff rice, & still the yardstick by which I judge it). There were no Ethiopian grocers; there was an Indian grocery that sold injera, but usually ran out before we could get it. My (now) wife would either make it herself (which I described at TOS) or we’d just give up & get a loaf of sourdough from La Madeleine. (Edited b/c the save button got ahead of me again)
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There is a Taste of Ethiopia II in Pflugerville now! I know what we’re having the next time my husband and are both working from home and can take a long lunch.
Also an African grocer, Sumah, in Pflugerville I’ve been wanting to explore
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They got a new chef whom Woinee then trained personally, I can taste the difference. The new hire came in just a few months before I left Austin for good. The last day I was in, I asked her directly “who is that cooking now? because this food tastes so much better” and she just smiled and smiled before dragging the poor fellow out of the kitchen. (It was a slow day, so it was all good, and it was how I got the lowdown.)
He’s young. He’s got his whole life to get better and better.
I agree Habesha is very good. The arduous drive from my place to there meant that we really only ate there when we had a bunch of friends we wanted to meet up in North Austin.
Love their annual festival. Well worth the hassle. Amazing music and food.
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P.S. some places (IME) will include shimbera asa as one part of a vegetarian combo (yetsom beyayenetu) – it seems to depend on who was in the kitchen that day. Also, I typed it out like that because it’s 2 words, but you’d pronounce it like “shimbrasa”. But I don’t remember them having it at all at Habesha…
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I thought the traditional way was to keep the pasty under your armpit to warm it up for lunch?
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There ain’t no pasty like an armpit pasty, 'cause an armpit pasty don’t drop. Unless you have to reach for something, I suppose.
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