Ethiopian Pumpkin Stew (d’ba zigni…kind of)

When I went to Toronto before Christmas I went to the only all-vegetarian (mostly vegan – no spiced butter) Ethiopian restaurant in the city for dinner. They actually use 100% teff injera (the Ethiopian sponge bread that is both a plate and a utensil) instead of a mix of wheat flour and teff, or just wheat flour. Actually they had a mix of barley and teff that day, but that was good enough for me at the time. They didn’t make it there, and they ran out just before my pumpkin stew order, but I got the last of it with my salad of onions and lentils and lemon to start.

The pumpkin stew was supposedly a specialty, and it didn’t come on the ever-popular combo platter made up of basically all the other vegetarian dishes. So, sick as I am of vegetarian platters at Ethiopian restaurants being essentially all the same (some red lentils, some collard greens, some chopped lettuce and tomato salad with lemon, some yellow lentils, some carrots and potato), I opted for the stew. It’s basically just spiced pumpkin. Probably a whole pumpkin went into my serving, it was so big! The only complicated part of the dish is making the berbere spice blend, which I hope they made fresh at the restaurant. It’s just kind of spicy and warming, and served on a big bed of inexpensive rice (instead of the teff injera since they ran out) the stew was completely satisfying, and way too edible. I devoured the entire thing, burning my tongue and tinting my fingers red from scooping up bits of with the last of my barley injera saved through a feat of willpower from my salad.

I figured the stew just tasted rich from the density of the pumpkin used, but when I got home and looked up recipes for the dish, it seems that a lot call for up to 1/2 cup of oil!!! And some call for 1 tbsp! So I have no idea what I put in my body, but I sure needed to walk it off the next day. The high end of the oil scale really doesn’t help the dish, though, since it’s generally just a cooking oil being used that doesn’t add any flavour. There’s no protein in the dish, either, so you don’t feel full very easily, meaning you’ll probably eat too much. Fortunately, the pumpkin goes down pretty smooth. The oil maybe doesn’t.

So I wanted to recreate the simple dish – mostly just pumpkin, tomato purée (not paste, though that would probably also work), ginger, and a complicated spice blend. Fortunately for me I had a berbere spice blend (all whole spices, not pre-ground) from Épices de Cru in Montreal, and all I had to do was grind the up and then fry them in the little bit of oil, like so:

D’Ba Zigni (Ethiopian Pumpkin Stew, kind of, since it actually mean “Spiced pumpkin in broth” but I let the pumpkin cook more, break down, and turn into a luxious, thick stew)

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1″ piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 2 tsp berbere (recipe below if you’re unable to find the spices whole. If you find a pre-ground powder, I’d still recommend making the recipe below instead)
• 1 (about 750 g) pumpkin or squash, cut into cubes or wedges (acorn, iron bark, buttercup, and kaboucha are best, but butternut would be okay too)
• 3 tbsp tomato purée (not paste, just blended tomatoes – the less juicy, the better. In fact you can cut them open and remove the seeds and juices, then just blend the flesh. It’s less bitter and more thick this way)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups water or 1 cup water and 1 cup broth (reduce salt if you use broth)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley to garnish, optional

Add the oil to a large saucepan over medium heat. When hot, add the onion and cook until golden and softened (about 5 minutes). Stir in the ginger and 2 tsp of berbere. Cook until the spices darken (about 1 minute) then stir in the pumpkin and coat with the spices.

Add the tomato purée, salt and 2 cups of water. Stir, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer for 25-35 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft (It will start to break down on its own, so err on the side of cooking it too long. Add more liquid if needed so it doesn’t stick. Some squash – and different size squash pieces – take longer to cook, so it really could be anywhere from 25-35 minutes). You can help the mashing along by using the back of a spoon. If you need to use a potato masher or an immersion blender the pumpkin just isn’t cooked yet. Put those fancy tools away. Top with cilantro (optional) and serve.

If you want a thinner soup, add some more water, as I did on day 2:

And serve it with injera or tortilla or rice, or whatever you want. I liked it wrapped up in a brown rice tortilla as a kind of pumpkin burrito, but I first had it with the last piece of my 100% teff grain home-made injera that I’d been saving just for this purpose. The fermented flavour was strong and bitter, and really nicely contrasted the sweet squash.

If you can’t find the berbere spice blend in a store and don’t want to order it from Épices de Cru online, make your own with this recipe: