Spicin' It Up

The other week, we went out on a whim and decided to make an Ethiopian spiced chicken stew. I'd never had anything like it before, but something about the recipe just seemed appealing. I figured that since I liked all of the ingredients individually I would like the meal itself, so why not try it.

It's a recipe I had pinned on Pinterest quite some time ago and finally got the nerve to try. You can find the recipe here (I just made a few small changes).

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups lentils
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup chopped red onions
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 5 tablespoons berbere spice blend 
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 1 can(14-ounce) diced tomatoes
• 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

Directions:

This one took a little bit of prep work, which I usually oppose, but it wasn't too bad. 

First, put the lentils in the crock-pot, and place the chicken on top of the lentils.

Heat the butter and oil on the stove. When the butter melts, add in the onions. Add the garlic and ginger once the onions have cooked for a few minutes and become pretty translucent. Mmmm I love the smell of onions and garlic cooking in butter. Cook for a few more minutes and then add the berbere spice. At this point, you may want to turn on your range hood or vent to combat the strong fragrance. We don't have a vent over our stove, so I decided to open the window.

The mixture on the stove should look something like this:

Stir in the wine and tomatoes, and then it should look like this:

Add the mixture to the crock-pot, then pour in the chicken broth. Cover and cook on low for about 7 hours.
After that, the chicken should shred and mix together with the rest of the stew:

Just a couple of notes:

• I thought 4 cups of onions was a bit excessive, especially considering I really don't like onions (I like the flavor, but not the texture) so we decided to use 1 cup instead
• I'd never heard of berbere spice blend until I saw this recipe. It was a little bit hard to track down, but we finally found it at Whole Foods.
• And man is it SPICY.
• This dish made the house smell amazingly good while it was cooking and even for the following two days.
• I have to warn you though, it is really, really spicy. With the 5 tablespoons of berbere spice, it was actually a little bit hard for me to eat. Bart loved it and gobbled it right up with our favorite bakery bread, but I only managed a few bites. I was bummed because I really enjoyed the flavors, but couldn't handle the spice. I think I'll be up for trying this again, but may make two separate, smaller dishes so I can put less of the spice mix in mine and Bart can keep his dinner hot, hot, hot.