Dabo Kolo

Ethiopia's little fried wheat nuggets, a stiff spiced dough rolled into ropes, cut small, and toasted dry in a pan until hard enough to travel anywhere

Origin: The Ethiopian Highlands

From the journey of Wheat.

Dabo kolo means, roughly, bread kernels, and that is exactly what they are: a stiff wheat dough rolled into thin ropes, cut into pieces the size of a fingernail, and cooked dry in a pan or in a little oil until hard and toasted right through. They are eaten by the handful with coffee, carried on journeys, given to children, and set out for guests, and they keep for weeks in a jar. The seasoning is what makes them Ethiopian. Plain versions are barely more than flour, salt, and a little sugar, but the common ones carry berbere, the chilli and spice blend that underpins the whole cuisine, which turns them dark red and genuinely hot. Others are made with niter kibbeh, the spiced clarified butter, which gives a rounder, more fragrant result. They are the everyday counterpart to the celebration bread. Where ambasha is baked as a single wheel for an occasion, dabo kolo are made in quantity for no occasion at all, and they belong to the same highland wheat culture: a region that grows the largest wheat crop in sub-Saharan Africa and holds one of the world's most important reservoirs of wheat genetic diversity, including emmer landraces that have largely disappeared elsewhere. The technique of drying a grain product hard so that it travels is the same one behind the Dutch rusk and the Cape rusk, and it appears independently wherever people needed to move across country without carrying water.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 400 g plain flour
  • 1.5 tsp fine salt
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 3 tbsp sunflower oil or melted niter kibbeh
  • 200 ml warm water, approximately

Spices

  • 2 tsp berbere, or more to taste
  • 0.5 tsp ground cardamom

To cook

  • 1 tbsp oil, for the pan

Method

  1. Whisk the flour, salt, sugar, berbere, and cardamom together.
  2. Work in the oil with your fingertips, then add the water gradually to make a stiff, smooth, unyielding dough. Knead for five minutes.
  3. Rest the dough, covered, for fifteen minutes.
  4. Divide into six. Roll each piece into a long rope about 1 cm thick on an unfloured surface.
  5. Cut each rope across into pieces about 1 cm long. Separate them so they do not stick together.
  6. Heat a wide heavy frying pan over a medium-low heat with the tablespoon of oil. Add the pieces in a single layer, in batches.
  7. Cook for twenty to twenty-five minutes, shaking and stirring every couple of minutes, until hard, toasted, and darkened.
  8. Test one by biting it: it should be hard right through with no give. Cool completely on a tray and store in a jar.

Notes

They can also be baked, spread on a tray at 160C for thirty to forty minutes with a shake every ten, which is easier for a large batch. Berbere varies enormously between blends and brands. Taste yours before deciding the quantity. A plain version with no berbere at all, seasoned only with salt and a little sugar, is what is usually given to small children. Kolo more broadly means roasted grain, and the mixed version with barley and chickpeas alongside the wheat pieces is the standard offering with coffee.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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