Taste the best of Ethiopia in Jozi

Source: Times Live Feb 15, 2011

Anyone who sets up a successful restaurant on a shoe-string in a foreign country is already something of a hero. But when the food's this delicious, I suppose superhero is a better title.

Netsi's Ethiopian, in a cosy nook on the third floor of the Little Addis building at 220 Jeppe Street, serves up some of the most delicious lunches in the city. Huge, velvety soft injera breads flopped across enamel platters like bedspreads, are studded with ambrosial little nuggets of deliciousness: chicken and meat wats (stews), glorious lentil somethings, stuffed chile peppers, and more. The ayeb cheese topping - a fresh curd cheese similar to ricotta - is heavenly soaked in stew juices and rolled into the sour injera.

Sit and feast on this while you watch fuzzy off-the-channel TV with chilled-out Ethiopians. Netsi's is open for breakfast and lunch from Monday to Saturday. Tel: 011-333-1074

COOKING THE BOOKS

Children's cookbooks usually get it dead wrong. Thankfully, here's one that actually teaches the wee bairns to cook respectable food - that is dishes their parents would genuinely enjoy, rather than endure, for supper.

The recipes, beautifully and usefully illustrated, are adapted from Italy's most legendary food bible, The Silver Spoon. We're talking polenta gnocchi, panzanella, focaccia, stuffed peaches. If my offspring could whip that up while I sit nearby with a large G&T, it'll be money well spent. The Silver Spoon for Children, published by Phaidon Press. R229.

SWEET TALKING

When even the Mount Nelson Hotel, at its pricey so-called high tea, serves scones long-cold and brick-hard, you know it's time to get baking yourself. Here's a quick and glorious scone recipe. All it needs is lightness of touch. And of course the best jam, cream and butter on the table.

For 12 buxom scones: 500g self-raising flour, 125g butter, 1 teaspoon salt, 300ml buttermilk or yogurt. Mix chopped butter, sifted flour and salt with your hands lightly, until like damp sand. Throw in the buttermilk and salt, and stir briefly with wooden spoon.

Knead minimally to bring together into a soft dough (add more liquid if necessary), press or roll lightly on floured surface to one knuckle high, then cut out rounds, brush with beaten egg, and bake on buttered tray for about 10 minutes at 200C. Ovens differ, so break a scone open to check and whip out the instant they're cooked through. Eat within 10 minutes, or all will be lost.