Food Memories: Alicha Doro

My favourite thing about alicha is the way my finger tips are stained yellow after I have eaten it. It is something that transports me back to being a child, looking at my turmeric fingers wondering how long they would be yellow for.

Traditionally, Ethiopian food is eaten with your hands, with stews and other accompaniments spooned onto a plate of injera, a dark, sourdough pancake. You then tear off pieces of the injera and use them to scoop up bite size morsels.

Alicha is a good place to start with Ethiopian food. Slowly cooked, minced onion and garlic forms the body of the sauce and is an essential building block in Ethiopian cooking. Kibbeh, a clarified butter similar to ghee, is then added to make the base for different stews using various spice mixes. The spice mixes can be fairly complex, in the case of berbere for example, a deeply flavoured and spicy combination of up to ten different spices. Alicha is a simpler sauce, using turmeric which is easily found in the UK, but can also include ginger, ajwain and black cardomom.

Ethiopian cooking also includes many vegan dishes, as the omission of meat, dairy and eggs is common place throughout the country during periods of fasting, which add up to about half of the year. This means that dishes like alicha are easily made without the kibbeh or meat, instead using oil and vegetables. The chicken in this recipe can be replaced with potatoes, carrots or white cabbage. Simply chop into bite sized pieces, and add to the pot instead of chicken. Simmer until the vegetables are just cooked, and take care not too add too much water, as you won’t be able to continue cooking the sauce once the vegetables are cooked.