A couple of weeks ago we visited our friends who live in the Boston area. For lunch, we went out to the Red Sea restaurant in Boston. Have you ever had Ethiopian food? No? Well it is SO GOOD. If you like curries, stews, spices, amazing flavors with lots of depth, you’ll like Ethiopian food.
Ethiopian food is usually served on/with injera bread, which is kind of like a giant spongy crepe. And you have to rip off pieces of injera and use it as a utensil, to pick up chunks of stewed meat, flavorful chickpeas and lentils, and to sop up the juices. Yummy. It’s a fun eating experience.
Whenever we go out for Ethiopian we usually get some kind of combo meal, sort of an ‘Ethiopian 101.’ Most restaurants have this, and everything we’ve ever had from that section of the menu has always been good, even if I can’t always remember the names of the things I am eating.
This time we decided to try a couple of appetizers too. One of the things we got was this awesome Spiced Ethiopian Cottage Cheese served with a bit of sauteed collard greens. It was called Ayib Begomen. Ayib means cheese, and gomen means collard greens. I absolutely loved this appetizer.
It was different than the other Ethiopian food we had, and as we were eating it, it occurred to me that I can totally make this! That’s one of my favorite things about cooking – trying something new and having that light bulb go off in my head when I realize I can make this for myself anytime!
So after dinner, we stopped by an Ethiopian grocery store and bought some Ethiopian spices. I got some berbere and some mitmita. Both are Ethiopian spice blends. Mitmita is super spicy, but berbere is just a bit spicy but also has so much flavor. I bet it’ll take me a while to go through the 8oz of mitmita I got, but I see myself using berbere for lots of recipes, including stews, pan-fried potatoes, and for this recipe too.
So back to this Ethiopian Cottage Cheese recipe! Traditionally you’re supposed to eat it with injera, but I didn’t have time for that this time (even though the recipe looks really easy!). If you don’t want to bother with injera, I bet this would be amazing on a pita or on some roti. We just had this as a side dish, and we devoured it in one sitting. So if you’re cooking for more than 2 people, I would say double this.
This was so easy to make and is a super healthy side or snack since it contains so much protein from the cottage cheese and lots of collard greens. If I was to make a habit of this, I would cut down on the butter or maybe use olive oil. But for the first time, I wanted to make it extra delicious, so 4 tablespoons of butter went into this. Yum.
Spiced Ethiopian Cottage Cheese with Collard Greens (Ayib Begomen Recipe)
Makes: 2-3 servings. Total time: 20 minutes.
- 1/2 lb collard greens (about 10-15 large leaves)
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 small yellow onion
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Optional for the collard greens: 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or berbere
- 1 cup cottage cheese (I used fat free)
- 1/2 teaspoon berbere (for the cottage cheese)
Note: Berbere mixtures can vary in spice, so if you know you don’t like things too spicy, err on the side of caution. You can always add more later, even when everything is cooked. You can’t take it out. 
1. Cut the stems out from the leaves. I do this by placing the collard green leaf down on a cutting board and carving out the stem. Then I fold all the halves on top of each other.
Slice the collard greens into 1/4 inch slices. This is easiest to do when you make a neat pile out of the leaves, and then roll them tightly together. You don’t want thick pieces here, since collard greens can be pretty tough.
2. Finely dice the yellow onion.
3. In a large skillet, melt the butter, and add the diced onion, minced garlic, and ground cardamom. Saute for 3 minutes until the onion softens and turns a nice yellow color.
4. Add the sliced collard green leaves, salt, and red pepper flakes or berbere if using it. Saute for a few minutes, and then cover with a lid and let the collard greens steam in the skillet for 10 minutes.
5. In the meantime, add the 1/2 teaspoon berbere to the cottage cheese and mix.
6. To serve, make a bed of sauteed collard greens, and place the spiced cottage cheese on top of the leaves. If you have some injera, pita bread, or roti around, they would go well with this side dish or snack.
Enjoy!
Spices that went into this recipe:
Have you ever had savory or spiced cottage cheese? Have you ever had Ethiopian food?
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