Ethiopian Spiced Fresh Farmer’s Cheese with Crusted Okra

Fresh farmer’s cheese is a snap to make and it’s absolutely delicious dusted with mitmita, an Ethiopian spice blend that’s heady, fragrant, and packing quite a bit of heat that contrasts nicely with the creamy cheese. It’s called Ayib Be Mitmita (so if you see it in a restaurant, don’t hesitate to order it!) It’s great as a snack with some injera and some spice crusted okra. I finally perfected my injera recipe to taste like what we get at restaurants–turns out the secret is making sure you have a sourdough starter! The recipe comes after the crusted okra below.

You can use milk for it, but if you use cream (or half and half), the curd to whey content will be higher, producing more cheese per cup of liquid.

Ingredients for the Farmer’s Cheese

• 2 cups milk, cream, or half-and-half (depending on which one you use, the amount of cheese will differ)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (any acid will do–vinegar or lime if you don’t have lemon juice) You can add more if they aren’t separating.
• Mitmita spice blend, to your taste
• 2 teaspoons salt

1. In a pot, combine salt and cream/milk/half-and-half and bring to a boil. The milk will foam so be sure to control the heat and baby it a bit so it doesn’t boil over.
2. Once milk is boiling, add lemon juice and continue boiling until the curds and whey have separated. The whey is the transluscent part and the curds is the solids that is our farmer’s cheese.
3. Drain over a large bowl into a colander (you can line with a coffee filter if you’d like) and reserve the whey for other applications such as making bread.
4. Press gently with a spoon to remove liquid and place into a bowl. Top with mitmita spice powder and serve with injera, crackers, or bread.

Ingredients for Spice Crusted Okra

• 10 okra, well washed
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 2 tablespoons butter

1. Combine garlic powder, onion powder, cardamom, salt, and corn starch together, mix well.
2. Wash okra but don’t worry about drying, it will help the corn starch mixture stick.
3. Place okra into the corn starch mixture and toss well until coated.
4. Fry gently in butter over medium heat (use clarified butter if you’re afraid of burning the butter) until crust is crispy. Alternatively, you can deep fry them but I like the flavor of butter with the herbs.

Ingredients for Injera

• .5 cup sourdough starter
• 1.5 cup water
• .5 cup barley flour
• .5 cup teff flour

1. Combine sourdough starter, water, barley flour, and teff flour together in a bowl. Cover and allow to ferment for 24 – 48 hours.
2. On a nonstick pan (or crepe pan) over medium heat, ladle some batter onto the pan, swirl to cover the bottom in a thin layer, and cover. Small holes (adorably called “eyes”) should open up and give your injera that classic holed texture. Once the batter has cooked (color will turn darker), remove from heat and place onto a plate. Eat with different dishes.