How Ethiopian-Israeli Chef Elazar Tamano Found His Place in the Kitchen

Shared by Elazar Tamano
Recipe Roots: Gondar and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia > Kfar Saba, Israel

Everyone who lived in the Israeli absorption center Elazar Tamano called home in the early 1990s was a new immigrant or the child of one — like him. But at school, Elazar was one of only a handful of Ethiopian students. Teachers didn’t understand them or their parents, he shares, and they were bullied by other kids. It was so bad that the group started looking out for one another when they were only 6-years-old. The feeling of not being as good as everyone else set in and haunted Elazar.

Like many in the Ethiopian Jewish community, his father Melaku had long yearned for Jerusalem. Tortured and imprisoned for his Zionist efforts, he worked with the Mossad for years to find a path to Israel for him and his children, as well as others in the community. He moved first from Gondar in the north of the country to Addis Ababa where he met TsIge, a Christian widow with four children of her own and the two fell in love. She converted and together they fulfilled Melaku’s dream of coming to Israel, but had to leave loved ones behind. TsIge’s children weren’t able to come with them because they were Christian and one of Melaku’s children died of starvation on the journey. 

The sharp contrast of the dream of reaching Zion with their reality was painful. Tslge was pregnant with Elazar when the couple arrived with four kids in tow to a life in a new language and a country that was largely unwelcoming to Black Jews. The 1996 news that the national blood bank had discarded samples from Ethiopian emigres for years due to fears of HIV/AIDS hit Melaku particularly hard — he felt rejected in his homeland. “Sometimes the dream is not what you expected,” Elazar says.

His family and community clung to Ethiopian culture in their town Kfar Saba, continuing traditions from home like regular gatherings that rotated from one home to another with guests giving money to the host to help offset the cost. For the Sabbath before a wedding, known as Shabbat Chatan, mothers made the tangy Ethiopian flatbread injera together and for special occasions, men took their turn, preparing the main dishes. To support everyone’s cooking, a community farm with ingredients from home was planted.

But again, Elazar felt apart. “I had an identity crisis,” he explains. “I didn’t have the anchor of the Ethiopian background like my brothers.” He felt most comfortable in Hebrew, but his father insisted Elazar learn Amharic and played games to draw him into the lessons. It made a big difference, Elazar recalls. Through speaking his parents’ mother tongue, he was able to build a stronger connection with them. His mother also taught him to cook recipes she knew from home and ones she learned from her husband’s family. When she returned to Ethiopia every year to see her children there, Elazar would cook for his father and himself, finding joy in the kitchen.

Outside of home, art helped Elazar cement his place and identity. His talent for drawing, which he calls his “superpower,” transformed him at school from a student who got into fights to one of the “cool kids.” It helped people see beyond his skin color, he shares. 

As an adult he pursued it professionally, attending art school while working jobs in kitchens. In time, he came to see food like art, as a form of creative expression. He began to dig deeper into Ethiopian culinary traditions, noticing a vast difference between the delicately flavored recipes from his mother’s family and the bright and bold ones of his father’s — not so much because she was born as a Christian and he was Jewish, but because Melaku was from the country and Tslge the city. 

Elazar’s learned from both and added his own touch, using local ingredients in dishes like an Ethiopian chicken stew that he finishes with tahini. He’s also riffed on the Ethiopian chickpea stew shiro, making it thicker like hummus. Today, most of his artistic work relates to the kitchen; it’s become a way for him to embrace and celebrate his Ethiopian-Israeli identity, he says. Fittingly, he calls it “Ethiopian with an Israeli accent.”

Doro Wat (Ethiopian Chicken Stew)

Doro wat is a classic chicken dish that is served on Ethiopian Shabbat dinner tables. The chicken is coated in a rich sauce flavored with spices and tomatoes. Doro wat is served with ingera, an Ethiopian pancake. Use the spongy and sour injera to soak up this rich chicken stew. Black cardamom can be found at specialty spice shops, or easily substituted with equal parts ground cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.

Makes: 4-6 servings
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients
2 ¼ pounds bone-in skin-on chicken drumsticks
6 hard boiled eggs, peeled
3 red onions, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 generous tablespoons berbere spice mix
1 can + 2 tablespoons tomato paste
7 ½ tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon ground black cardamom

Injera (for serving)

Preparation
1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over a low flame. Add in the chopped onions and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the ginger, garlic, berbere spice mix, and tomato paste and mix and cook for another 2 minutes. 

2. Increase the heat to medium and add all the drumsticks into the pan, stirring until they are all coated in the seasoning. Add the salt and pepper and mix. 

3. Add enough water to cover the chicken, about 6 cups. Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately reduce to the lowest flame. Cover the pot and cook for 1 hour until the chicken is cooked and tender. 

4. Make 2-3 small slits into the eggs and add them into the doro wat, mix to coat them with the sauce. 

5. Sprinkle the black cardamom and serve with injera. 

Dabo (Ethiopian Bread)

This Ethiopian bread recipe stands out because it utilizes an overnight fermentation process. With this extra time to rise, the dabo develops a complex flavor with a light and airy texture. This dabo is also perfumed with spices like turmeric, coriander and nigella seeds. Use a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle to grind the toasted coriander and nigella seeds for the best flavor.

Makes: 10 servings
Time: 10 minutes active + 10-12 hours inactive

Ingredients
3 ½ cups bread flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and ground
¾ teaspoon nigella seeds, toasted and ground
2 cups water
⅜ cups olive oil, plus more for greasing
1 ½ teaspoon dry active yeast
3 ¾ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar 

Preparation
1. In a large bowl, whisk the bread flour, whole wheat flour, turmeric, coriander, and nigella in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the water, olive oil, yeast, salt and sugar. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until everything is well combined. The dough will be wet and sticky. 

2. Grease an extra large bowl with a bit of olive oil. Transfer the dough into the oiled bowl. Make sure the bowl is at least 2 times the size of the dough because it will rise. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough proof overnight (or at least 8 hours) at room temperature. 

3. Line a large oven proof pot or dutch oven with parchment paper on the bottom and around the sides of the pot. (If needed, you can divide the dough into two and bake it in smaller pots to make smaller dough loaves.) Sprinkle a bit of olive oil and spread over the parchment paper. Transfer the proofed dough into this pot. Set the dough in the pot aside for 30 minutes for one final rise at room temperature. Place parchment paper the size of the pot directly on top of the dough and cover tightly with a lid or aluminum foil. 

4. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  

5. Place the covered pot or dutch oven into the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. Flip the bread out of the pot onto a wire rack and then place it back into the pot, upside down. Bake for 10 more minutes. Invert the bread and serve.

Pitpit Salad (Chopped Salad with Spiced Sour Cream)

Berbere spice is a spicy, citrusy and sweet spice blend that can be found in every Ethiopian cook's kitchen. No two blends are the same, as berbere often contains upwards of 12 spices. 

Makes: 6-8 servings
Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon berbere spice mix 
3 Persian cucumbers, chopped into a small dice
3 tomatoes, chopped into a small dice
1 small red onion, chopped into a small dice
½ - 1 jalapeno, de-seeded and chopped into a small dice
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped into a small dice
1 head of romaine, finely chopped
1 handful of a torn piece of dabo bread, teared by hand into small pieces
6 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of one lemon
1 ¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper 

Preparation
1. Mix the sour cream with the berbere spice mix in a small bowl until well combined. Set aside.

2. Place the chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, red pepper, romaine and dabo bread pieces into a large bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and toss well until it's an evenly dressed salad. 

3. Add the spiced sour cream to the salad, toss well and serve.

Honey Tart

This sweet tart was inspired by a heritage trip chef and artist Elazar Tamano took with his father Melaku to Ethiopia. They visited Melaku’s old village where his neighbors welcomed them “with a rustic Ethiopian hospitality,” Elazar shares. “They have a beehive in the yard and keep the honey in barrels. We were served a huge honeycomb and Ethiopian coffee. I had never tasted honey like it before and wanted to share that experience through this tart.” He called it mare, a term for “sweetie” in Amharic. 

Elazar uses Ethiopian white honey for this recipe and strongly recommends seeking it out. If you’re unable to, look for thicker honey with a grainy texture. 
Read about Elazar’s family in “How Ethiopian-Israeli Chef Elazar Tamano Found His Place in the Kitchen” and check out his recipes for kifto, an Ethiopian beef tartare, injera, and more from our our partner Asif: Culinary Institute of Israel.

Makes: 1 10-inch tart

Ingredients
For the pastry dough:
2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
7 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 egg yolks

For the honey filling:
4 egg yolks
5½ tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons cornstarch
2½ cups heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cardamom seeds

To serve (optional):
Flaky sea salt
Fresh oregano blossoms or hyssop leaves

Preparation

1. Prepare the pastry: whiz the flour, salt, powdered sugar and cold butter in a food processor in short pulses to a crumbly mixture. Add the egg yolks and process just until the pastry dough starts to form (avoid over-processing). Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, flatten to a disc and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Prepare the filling: Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and honey in a bowl and set aside. Mix the cornstarch with a little heavy cream in a saucepan until smooth with no lumps. Add the remaining heavy cream while continuously whisking. Add sugar, salt, and ground cardamom and place the saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring continuously until thickened, about 10 minutes. Gradually and very slowly, pour this mixture into the bowl with egg yolks and honey, vigorously mixing. Mix until combined well into a smooth cream. Cover the surface of the cream with the plastic and cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease the tart pan with butter.

4. Roll the cold pastry between two sheets of parchment paper to ⅛ inch. Carefully transfer the piece of rolled out dough on top of the tart pan and use your hands to press the dough into the pan. Cut off any excess dough that hangs over the edge of the pan. Use any excess pieces of pastry to patch any tears. Freeze for 15 minutes.

5. Blind bake the dough: Remove the tart pan from the freezer and line it with parchment paper which has been cut into a circle about the diameter of the bottom of the pan. Line again with tin foil, making sure all of the crust is covered. Fill with pie weights or dried beans and then place into the oven for 10 minutes, until the crust has just slightly browned. Carefully remove the pie weights or beans, tin foil and parchment paper.

6. Pour the filling over the tart, smooth to an even layer and bake until the mixture is bubbling and amber in color, about 45 minutes. Cool for at least 2 hours.

7. To serve: sprinkle a pinch of flaky sea salt, fresh oregano blossoms or hyssop leaves on top of the tart.