Djibouti - March 25th

It was not a written New Year's resolution, but I had it in my mind to cook and host an alphabetical dinner at least once a month... Well, what happened to February then? I did cook and host a dinner but it was our annual Seafood Lasagna (Eric and I version of Valentine's day - a lot more fun than the real thing!) so I didn't really have much time to organize a "D" dinner as well.

The "D" dinner was instead last night: Djibouti. As I mentioned in my Cameroon's story, not many people I spoke to had ever heard of Djibouti even though there was an helicopter crash last month and a few American soldiers die. When I mentioned it to my boss, she joked that it's not the kind of country she would want to talk to her children about. This is because of the "bouti" in Djibouti which for those who don't speak American English, it's another word for a woman's derrier...

My guests, Ned and Melissa, knew about Djibouti and Ned had even done some research on it before coming for dinner so he was delighting us with various stats from the CIA website... some stats were rather somber, like the fact that unemployment rate is 40% but other were rather surprising, like Djibouti is the only country in Africa with a US military base. Obviously the narrative became more and more interesting as the wine kept flowing... Until my eyes felt so heavy that I was afraid to pass out on the table (not that I haven't done that before - D, are you reading this?). I found 4 empty bottles on the kitchen counter this morning and if we all drank an equal amount that means we had a bottle each. Eric reached out for the aspirin this morning so I guess we didn't quite have an equal amount of wine...

Back to the dinner, the research for recipes of Djiboutian cuisine was not an easy one. I googled all sort of combinations but the truly successful one was "cuisine djiboutienne" - Djibouti was a French colony for a long time and French is still their main official language so I figured I might have had better luck in finding some recipes if I searched in French. And I was right...

(Zilla (short for Catzilla - my kitten) has just jumped on my lap and is purring happily while I type. She loves watching me type, but sometimes she gets a little too excited and passes the most horrible farts! Hopefully she'll be OK today. )

Aside from the French website (http://www.djibnet.com/), I also eventually found a couple of recipes in English and I started to plan the menu. Melissa is vegetarian - although always very accommodating and not at all offended if meat is served - so I wanted to find a main course that was vegetarian, since I had decided on Fah Fah - Soupe Djiboutienne - as a starter. I found a vegetable stew that sounded interesting enough and settled for that and a side of a lentil dish.

There were a few ingredients that I had never heard of but another quick search on google helped solve the mystery: Niter Kebbeh is a spiced butter and Berbere is another concoction of various spices mixed with red wine and olive oil to make a sauce. Preparing the butter and the sauce was the best part: I don't think I've ever mixed so many spices at the same time and the whole house was immerse in a wonderful scent for a great part of the afternoon (garlic, ginger, turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fenugreek, basil, cumin, pepper and allspice). It was a true feast of the senses.

For the soup, the recipe did not specify which meat should be used (just said "viande", French for meat) and Eric suggested goat since cows, pigs and chickens aren't readily available in Djibouti and so I purchased goat meat at the farmers market. Perhaps I should have spent more time de-boning it but I figured the bones would help give the soup more flavor. Yes, it was a bit messy to eat but this isn't Buckingham Palace and eating with your fingers is allowed!

Another problem I always have when picking recipes from the internet without testing first, is that I never really know how many portions they will actually yield. Sometimes, serve 4 could result in a meal for 10 and sometimes, serve 6 is not even enough for 4! And no, I don't think it has to do with portion sizes... Ok, maybe sometimes it does. Anyhow, the main course was not a lot of food and the side dish was enough to feed a small country. I guess we'll have lentils for the rest of the week. Thankfully they were good!

For dessert I had to cheat a little: I couldn't find anything that suggested people in Djibouti eat dessert at the end of the meal but since they have plenty of bananas, I decided to cook banana fritters. I had a choice between banana bignets and banana fritters but settled for the latter as I read somewhere that eating eggs is not popular in Djibouti (of course this isn't necessarily true...).

The wine was red as usual (we're quite traditionalists in this household when it comes to alcoholic beverages). We started with Anakena, a carmenere Eric bought in Chile and then moved to a Chianti Ruffino - I remember that when I was in elementary school, we had an educational trip to the Ruffino winery in Pontassieve and they gave us a little memento to take home, you've got to love Italy!!! But the real surprise was a Sterling, courtesy again of Ned and Melissa, that was absolutely delicious.

I even took a couple of pictures of the evening before we were too drunk and merry to remember. One shows Eric, Ned and Melissa at the table toasting the dinner and the other is a picture of the main course (Yetakelt W'et - spicy vegetable stew - that I served on white rice and with a dollop of Greek goat milk yogurt). Of course, being this the first time that I load pictures on this blog, I have no idea where they are actually going to be showing up until I publish it. So, if they don't pop up, please bear with me until I figure out what else I should be doing.

Some of you have asked me to include the recipes as well, so I am creating a separate link to attach them.

Finally, here is the menu with the average rating by the guests and Eric....

Appetizer
Fah-Fah - (Soupe Djiboutienne) - average rating: 6 (too many bones!)

Main Course
Yetakelt W'et - (Spicy Mixed Vegetable Stew) - average rating: 8
Served with
Djibouti Lentils - average rating: 7.7

Dessert
Banana Fritters - average rating: 7


Next dinner: Egypt... I am sure there will be plenty of choices this time.

Stay tuned.

Rossana