Cabbage Alecha

Mouth watering mildly spiced vegetable dish from Ethiopia. This is generally made with cabbage, carrots and potato. I dropped the potato and put in seeded jalapeno, it tasted better to me. It is slightly buttery creamy vegetable with the fragrance you won't forget. A special clarified butter/ghee called "Netir Khebbe" is used in this recipe. A recipe for which i will give you along with this alecha. I made this once and wanted to eat once more so I made it the next time and the next...:D .. really love it. Hope you love it as much as i do.Alecha is milder than a wat/wot and can compliment the flavor of wot/wat. Since wat/wot is really spicy, this can bring down the pallet a notch. Make this with any of the wot/wats you are making to compliment the pallet. There are a wide array of vegetables with which you can make this Alecha, I liked this particular one a lot. You can add green beans, potatoes, peas and etc... Netir Khebbe can be used in other recipes as well like Mesir alecha and etc. I have read that, in Ethiopia, they make this spiced clarified butter in a large quantity and store it to use for many varieties of dishes. The short cut to make Netir Khebbe would be to use garam masala instead of all the spice list i have given below. I believe in knowing all the recipes, you know like, teach a person fishing, they will eat for life kind of thing. It just gives more flexibility if we learn the basics and we can also improvise when we do not have a few things on hand.

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Servings: about 4

Ingredients:

1. Cabbage - 2 cups, roughly chopped
2. Carrots - 3, peeled and roughly chopped
3. Jalapeno - 1 seeded
4. Netir Khebbe - 2 tsp, recipe below
5. Ginger and garlic paste - 1 tsp
6. All purpose flour - 1 tsp
7. water - about 3/4 cup
8. Salt - to taste

Netir khebbe:

Ingredients:

[you can use 1/2 tsp garam masala in lieu of all these spices ]

1. Clarified butter/oil - 2 tsp
2. Clove - 1 or a pinch of powder
3. Cinnamon - 2 pinches powder or a small piece
4. Cardamom - 1 pods crushed or 2 pinches of powder
5. Nutmeg - 1 pinch of ground nut meg

Method:

• Heat clarified butter or oil in a pan which can hold all the vegetables. Add all the above spices and saute for 5 seconds

Method for Cabbage Alecha:

• In the pan of netir khebbe, add ginger garlic paste and saute for a few seconds.
• Add the flour and saute till the raw smell goes away.
• Add Jalapenos and saute for a few seconds.
• Add carrots, saute for a few seconds and all enough salt for the dish, mix in well, sprinkle some water, put the lid on and let it sweat for a few minutes.
• Add cabbage, mix in well and add about 1/2 cup worth water, put the lid on and cook till all the vegetables are well cooked. Cabbage alecha is read to eat.

Serving Suggestion:

Serve it with Injera or any kind of bread. Goes well with any kind of dosa or indian roti.

Tips:

If the alecha is watery, mix 1/2 tsp of flour with 1 tsp water well and mix it into the pan cook for 2 minutes, this should take care of the runny mixture. If it is still watery, add some more flour-water mixture.