I’ll lead with the disclaimer.  I have never been to an Ethiopian restaurant or knowingly eaten Ethiopian food prior to making this bread.  OK, now that the full disclosure is out of the way, ambasha is fascinating and that is not a descriptor that I’ve ever used for bread.  It’s sort of like a pan pizza crust but with a whole lot more going on.  I was expecting utilitarian bread since my understanding of Ethiopian is that it is messy finger food and bread is the de facto silverware.  It could sure be used for that although it has no trouble standing on its own.  Obviously, we have to give Google an assist for all that information.  My curiosity piqued, I did a little more Internet snooping and it turns out that injera is the utilitarian form of dabo and ambasha is considered more special in that it is both more flavorful and decorative.   I’m sure that you gathered from context that dabo is the Ethiopian equivalent of bread in generic form.  I am so cool!  I can now speak 3 words of Ethiopian and with just a few more I can go to our local Ethiopian joint and be annoying; I can hardly wait.

This was one of those unusual or ethnic recipes that you find once and then every other site that references the dish in question has the exact and I mean truly exact, same recipe.  I hate it when that happens!   Amazingly, this most frequently plagiarized recipe was in almost unusable form.  You would think that the bandits would at least make an effort to clean it up a bit but nooooo.  Well, I have and I made a few adjustments to what must have been typos because if you put the quantity of cayenne in the basted topping as the much copied version called for there would be no hell worse than the digestive agony that you would endure.  They also had the bread and topping ingredients mixed up in their list so you had to guess or deduce what went where.  The way I figure it my alterations make this my own and so while I certainly received inspiration from whoever the hell published this first, it’s all mine now.

Ambasha

For the bread

1 Tbs –  active dry yeast

1/4 cup – warm water

2 Tbs – ground coriander

1/8 tsp – cinnamon

1/2 tsp – white pepper

1 tsp – toasted ground fenugreek

2 tsp – salt

1/3 cup – vegetable oil

1 1/4 cup – lukewarm water

5 cups – unbleached flour

rehydrate the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water for 10 minutes.  Add the coriander, cinnamon, white pepper, fenugreek, salt, 1/3 cup oil and lukewarm water.  Thoroughly mix.  Add the flour a little at a time and work the dough once a ball has formed.  keep adding the flour and working the dough until all has been added and the dough is smooth and beginning to rise.  This will take around 10 minutes depending on your room temperature.  Break off enough dough to roll in your palms to make a 1 inch diameter ball, reserve.  Spread the remaining dough onto an ungreased baking tray in a circular shape.  A pizza pan works well for this.  You want the diameter of the circle to be 10 to 12 inches.  Score the dough in three or four concentric circles and then overlay those with 8 wheel spoke scores.  Place the 1 inch dough ball in the middle of the wheel, cover and let rise for 1 hour.  Preheat oven to 350 F and bake for 1 hour or until the top is GBD.  The Food Network may be crap now, but Alton’s golden brown and delicious will live forever!

For the Baste/topping

1 tsp – cayenne

1/4 tsp – ground ginger

1 pinch – ground clove

1 tsp – ground cardamom

2 Tbs – olive oil

Combine in a small bowl and brush on the bread while still warm.