Thank you, Naya, for teaching us! She washed her goat meat (you can also use lamb or beef), and trimmed it of excess fat.
Chopped up two 1 1/2 bunches of collards.
Sauteed 3 onions, minced, in a cup of oil. Added 1/2 tsp berbere spice.
Added the meat, and cooked until browned.
Added four bouillon cubes.
As the meat was cooking, she got going on the next step, making the kope. Basically, it's made out of this corn flour, water, and a lot of special mojo techniques that take twenty times to master. Check out the pics (and the video I'll post tomorrow) because they're just awesome to watch. Then substitute Irsreali couscous or rice in the recipe. When I said I wanted to try doing the kope at home, Naya laughed, and said she'd have to come help me. It took her twenty times to learn - and she'd seen her mom do it all her life!
Once the meat was browned, she covered it almost with water, and let the meat cook until it started to soften (time will depend on the cut of meat you use). Once the meat started to soften, she added the chopped collards and spinach, and let those all cook until they were soft enough to eat.
So after she turned the fermented corn flour paste into these little balls, she cooked them with water, stirring often, for quite a while, like 20 minutes. She said, "You think they're done, and they're not."
Then once the kope and meat are cooked separately, you mix them together, and serve the meal in bowls with spoons. Sorry this pic of the final dish is out of focus!
Here's me at home trying the dish out with lamb instead of goat, and couscous instead of the kope. It turned out to be delicious. Sometimes I think everything I learn in this project is delicious. Those kimd of odds raise some red flags in terms of validity. So after my husband was muttered, "This is good," while eating the dish, I asked. "Is it? Is it really good? (Or are you just being polite because I cooked dinner!)"
"Yes." He said.
"Good, like other people will like it?" I asked.
"Yes."
So there you have it.
I found myself using my Cuisinart to chop the greens and Better than Bouillion instead of bouillon cubes because they have MSG in it and I prefer not to have that. Cook this dish! It's awesome!
- Lindsay Sterling
photos: Lindsay Sterling with a not-so-great point and shoot!
