Renowned Ethiopian chef says her heritage is inspirational

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

“Communal food preparations and eating form a big part of the Ethiopian way of life; I choose to prepare a lot of vegan dishes because my community from Tigray observes a vegan fast for almost 210 days a year,” said Chef Saba Alemayoh during the “Ethiopian Cuisine” cookery show at the 15th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF) taking place in Expo Centre Sharjah from May 1-12.

The Melbourne-based chef prepared a snack from Ethiopian cuisine, which she called “Tekebash’s Cauliflower”, named after her mother Tekebash Gibre who is an authority on traditional Ethiopian food and who had migrated to Sudan and later Australia due to the civil war in her country from 1974-91.

Together, they run a restaurant in Melbourne. Saba has also published a cookbook called Tekebash & Saba: Recipes and Stories from an East African Kitchen that features delicious recipes from her home country.

The snack, similar to an Indian pakoda (fritters), was a flour-coated and deep-fried snack that went well with a blue cheese dip. For this, the cauliflower was first cut into small florets and dipped in a bowl of shiro paste – chickpea, onion, garlic dried and powdered and mixed with chilli powder, adding water to get a thick paste – and then coated with a rice flour and the regional teff flour (cornflour or all-purpose flour if unavailable) and dropped into hot oil to get a crisp golden-brown consistency.

For the blue cheese dip, she mixed blue cheese, full-fat mayonnaise, minced garlic, salt and whole milk in a food processor and gave it a good swirl.

Chef Saba suffused her dish with the history of her homeland and its people, and how different communities coexisted while embracing their individual practices, particularly in the kitchen. The young chef will be preparing a meat dish in the coming days.

The Cookery Corner is hosting 60 workshops and 36 live cooking sessions led by 12 renowned chefs and 25 experts from 12 countries.

Earlier, an interesting and kid-friendly version of the famous Japanese sushi was a highlight of the cookery workshops at the 15th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF), whose 15th annual edition is running until May 12 in Expo Centre Sharjah.

Armed with rolling pins, over a dozen young chefs set about flattening bread slices after chopping off their crust; then they squirted blobs of cream cheese on each slice and spread it to make the perfect bed for a thin slice of cucumber, sprinkled zaatar to spice up the rendition before rolling and securing it with a toothpick.

Some even cut each rolled slice into smaller pieces to make it a tidy snack.

Aptly named “Divine Sushi Sandwich”, the preparation was truly divine for its nutritious quotient, ease of making and presentation. According to its creator Lamia Msallam, the sandwich made in sushi style is a safe and healthy option for young children.

After four days of sandwich making, a “Mini Sushi Cake” workshop will engage children for the next four days, followed by another new dish with the same focus on healthy eating. The Palestinian chef added that she will use the nori paper used in sushi making for the ‘cake’ but without rolling it like in traditional sushi preparations.

The 15th edition has the theme “Once Upon a Hero”. The 12-day action-packed festival for young readers, artists and creatives as well as their families showcases millions of books including latest releases in children’s and Young Adult (YA) literature from across the globe.

SCRF 2024 is also offering the region’s largest platform for cultural and artistic appreciation with theatrical performances, culinary demonstrations, workshops in STEM, social media, music, and several exciting competitions, activities, animation events.

SCRF has 1,500-plus activities this year and the festival organiser, Sharjah Book Authority (SBA),has ensured that the 12-day festival is completely action packed for young readers, artists and creatives as well as their families.