Ethiopian Cuisine

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On this page you will discover the amazing culinary foods that Ethiopian Cuisine has to offer. Easy to follow, step-by-step instructions, including many of the best traditional Ethiopian recipes, on how to create dishes and full course meals that will transport you just north of the equator, in Eastern Central Africa. Also you will get information and resources to be able to prepare them.

Ethiopia on MapMy first experience of eating Ethiopian Cuisine was when a young lady I was dating took me to The Blue Nile, one of the American franchised chain restaurants. The Blue Nile offers not only authentic Ethiopian cuisine, but the traditional manner in which to eat it.

You sit in low wicker basket seats arranged around a central large wicker basket. A waiter brings out a large circular platter and places it in the wicker basket, then lines the basket with injera – (a tasty, supple and spongy flatbread).

Everyone is given a hot, moist towel to wash their hands while the meal is being prepared. You will be eating with your hands (right hand only!).

When the waiter returns, he (or she) is carrying another large platter, from which are scooped up a large assortment of fragrant and sumptuous entrees, and ladled onto the injera bread. Each diner is given a large pancake sized piece of injera, from which you tear off pieces to use as an edible utensil with which to scoop up mouthfuls of the entrees.

Ethiopian Cuisine -The Ethiopian Feast

Now, as an American, growing up as a young adult in the 70s and 80s, I had always heard that the people of Ethiopia were starving. The country has gone through decades of drought and famine. Even recently I have read articles on the continuing challenges they face there with child malnutrition and starvation.

So you can imagine the irony going on in my head when I sat down to this “Ethiopian Feast”, the main meal offered at the Blue Nile!

Needless to say, I was astounded at not only the vast assortment of foods spread out in front of me, but also how exquisitely they were prepared and tasted. I had to think: Well, I suppose this is what a feast of Ethiopian cuisine would be like, if Ethiopians had food.

And I do hope if, among the readers we get from all over the world, here at Ethnic Foods R Us, there are some people from Ethiopia, that you would please leave comments? Let us all know the “real” story of what is happening in your country, not just what we get in the media, okay?

But enough digressive background.

If you are fortunate enough to live where there is bounty, and are blessed with a good and nutritious steady diet of food, count this as another blessing to be thankful for. You will now be treated to some of the finest authentic and traditional recipes that comprise the marvelous body of-

Ethiopian Cuisine!

Please note: For your convenience, you can click on the recipes listed below and be taken directly to a page with just that recipe on it, in printer-friendly format. You are certainly welcomed to read through this whole page, all the recipes are here as well, and there are some videos and pertinent information on background, history, etc., so it is well worth the read.

Here is the list, in alphabetical order:

Abesha Gomen (Ethiopian Collard Greens with Niter Kibbeh Spiced Butter)

Azifa (Ethiopian Cold Lentil Salad)

Dabo Kolo (Ethiopian Snack Bread)

Doro Tibs Wat (Ethiopian-style Stew with Meat)

Duba Wat (Ethiopian-style Stew with Pumpkin and Squash)

Ethiopian Injera Bread

Kifto (Ethiopian Spiced Raw Beef) + Niter Kibbesh (Ethiopian Spiced Butter)

Kik Wat (Red Lentil Stew)

Lamb Tibs (Marinated and Stewed Chunks of Lamb)

We’re going to prepare a feast, Ethiopian Cuisine style. The following several recipes, after this one, will be the entrees of this multi-course repast. But first off, and absolutely essential and basic to the feast – or any Ethiopian cuisine full course meal, is the marvelous, tasty, spongy, French crepe-like in texture bread that is always served.

 

Ethiopian Injera Bread

Ethiopian Cuisine - Injera Bread

Ingredients:

(You can of course use larger quantities to make more, just keep these proportions between the teff flour and the water)

Directions:
  1. Mix the teff flour with the water in a mixing bowl and allow to sit, covered with a cloth dish towel at room temperature until it ferments—you will know when it turns sour and starts bubbling, and the mixture takes on the consistency of rather thin pancake batter. This can take as long as 3 whole days, so be patient.
  2. Heat a large saucepan or skillet to medium high, with a small amount of oil.
  3. Pour in just enough batter to cover the bottom of the skillet—not too much, you don’t want it to be too thick, just about like a French crepe. Once you pour the batter in, turn, tip, and rotate your skillet so the batter spreads evenly across the bottom.
  4. Fry only until bubbles form and pop into little holes on the surface—do not brown your injera, and do not flip it over. True authentic injera is only cooked on one side.
  5. Take each injera out of the skillet as it is done, set aside to cool on a platter, and place a sheet of plastic wrap between each successive piece to prevent sticking together.
  6. If you are preparing a large meal, for 2, 3, or 4 people, it would be best if you could make one very large piece of injera, using a very large skillet, or perhaps a frying grille, making a piece of bread large enough to place portions of all the entrees on it, in the center of your dining guests.
  7. When ready to serve your meal, place your largest piece of injera on an appropriately sized serving plate or platter, ladle portions of your entrees onto the injera, and provide each person with their own piece of injera, instructing them to please eat with their hands (right hand only, if you are doing it up traditional Ethiopian cuisine style), and showing by example how to tear off a piece of the injera, and use it as an edible utensil to scoop up a mouthful of one of the tasty entrees.
  8. Note: Always have extra injera made up for a meal. It goes fast, and you don’t want to run out.

Among the authentic Ethiopian recipes that are meat entrees is this next one, which will go nicely with the other entrees in our Ethiopian Cuisine feast. A very hot and spicy chicken dish, and absolutely yummy, this is our first entree of many to come in the feast known as:

The Mesob – A Feast Ethiopian Cuisine Style!

Doro Tibs Wat

Ethiopian Cuisine: Doro Tibs Wat

Ingredients:
Directions:
  1. Wash and clean the chicken and chop into bite-sized pieces, then sauté them with some olive oil until just nicely browned on all sides in a large, deep saucepan or skillet over medium-high heat. Do not overcook at this point. You just want to brown and seal the chicken pieces. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
  2. In the same saucepan or skillet over heat now reduced to medium, sauté the onions, stirring frequently, until softened, fragrant, and translucent—but not browned.
  3. Just at the point the onions seem like they will start browning, add the olive oil into the skillet, and continue stirring to blend, then add in the berbere spice seasoning and stir and blend it well throughout the onions. Cook for about one minute, now stirring constantly.
  4. Add the berbere, and stir it into the moist sizzling onions. Let it cook for a minute, stirring it constantly.
  5. Now add in the wine, chicken broth, and berbere sauce, mix everything together thoroughly, and bring the mixture up to a boil over high heat. The alcohol will evaporate out of the wine quickly, but what you want is the residual flavor it leaves in your dish. Boil vigorously for about 5 to 6 minutes.
  6. Now add the chicken back into the pan, stir the mixture all together, reduce the heat to where your Dora Tibs Wat is cooking at just a lively simmer, and then add in the finely chopped Scotch Bonnet peppers.
  7. Simmer-cook, uncovered, until the meat is well done and tender, and the liquid is reduced to a thick stew, almost sauce-like texture. This could take 45 minutes to one hour.
  8. Always serve with Injera bread, of course.

Now lets add a vegetable entree to our Ethiopian cuisine feast. This is a lentil dish, a splendid symphony of flavors blended together, in the form of a cold salad. Goes great with the hotter, more spicier entrees!

Azifa

(Ethiopian Cold Lentil Salad)

Azifa

Ingredients:
Directions:
  1. Boil a pot of water and cook the lentils until tender, about 30-35 minutes, then drain them in a sieve or colander and rinse well with cold water. Put in a mixing bowl.
  2. Stir the lentils vigorously with a spatula or large wooden spoon, until they become a bit mashed.
  3. Now add the olive oil, lime juice, turmeric, onions and jalapeño into the bowl with the lentils, and stir and blend all ingredients together well.
  4. Do a taste test. Each and every ingredient should be present on the palate. If one or more is missing, add more of that until it is equally represented along with all the other ingredients, in one harmonious symphony of flavors.
  5. Place your Azifa in the refrigerator to chill before serving.

This next entree is one of the more easy Ethiopian food recipes you will come across, and it will go well with our feast, another lentil entree, but this one’s a stew and served hot.

Kik Wat

(Red Lentil Stew)

kik Wot - red lentil Stew

Ingredients:
Directions:
  1. Put some vegetable oil in a large cooking pot over medium-high heat, and simmer the garlic and onion with the berbere seasoning.
  2. Add in the water and the red lentils, bring the mixture to a lively simmer, and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until the lentils are fully cooked and tender.
  3. Serve immediately while hot.

We simply cannot have an truly authentic Ethiopian cuisine feast without including a lamb entree. Tibs is a traditional Ethiopian method of preparing a meat dish, and this one here is without a doubt one of the best authentic Ethiopian recipes of its kind.

Ethiopian Cuisine: Lamb Tibs

Ethiopian Cuisine: Lamb Tibs

Ingredients:
Directions:
  1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the jalapeno and the lamb chunks, then add half of the wine and mix together well, then cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours—3 is even better.
  2. Now make your clarified butter by combine the melted butter, cardamom, garlic and turmeric in a saucepan, and bringing it all to a rolling boil.
  3. As the mixture boils, skim off any impurities which rise to the surface.
  4. When all impurities are done rising and skimmed off, pour the contents through a sieve held over a bowl, to remove any solids, which you will discard. What remains in the strained bowl is your clarified butter.
  5. Combine on tablespoon of your clarified butter in a small saucepan over low heat, with the dark chili powder and berbere seasoning. Cook for about one minute, stirring, taking care your butter does not burn.
  6. Now add into the saucepan the remaining dry red wine. Stir well to combine, and now you have your chili sauce made. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the sauce into a serving bowl.
  7. Take the marinating lamb out of the refrigerator, and, using a slotted spoon, remove the lamb chunks from marinade and place them on a bed of paper towels to drain, and pat them dry on top with more paper towels. Keep the marinade left in the bowl, and set aside for a moment.
  8. Using a very large skillet (cast-iron is best) over medium-high heat, add in two tablespoons of your clarified butter, and let the butter get real hot.
  9. Toss the marinated lamb chunks into the pan, along with the rough chopped green bell pepper, and sauté until the peppers are tender and the meat is seared and browned on all sides.
  10. Next, add the reserved marinade into the skillet and continue cooking, stirring often, until the lamb is cooked through—about 3 minutes should do the trick.
  11. Season to taste with salt, pepper and rosemary, then reduce heat to where your Tibs are cooking at just a lively simmer, and cook until the liquid in the pan is reduced and thickened nicely.
  12. Serve immediately while still hot, with the remaining juices in the pan drizzled over the Lamb Tibs.

 

Our next entree in our Ethiopian cuisine feast is not for the squeamish. It is primarily raw beef.

Yes. Raw beef.

But the exquisite taste and texture of this dish is such that you won’t even feel the need to chew. It will melt apart in your mouth, imparting an amazing taste and texture sensation like none other than you have ever experienced.

And hey – if you just can’t stand the thought of eating raw beef, you can, after following all the other steps, sauté the meat if you want to.

Kifto

(Ethiopian Spiced Raw Beef)

Ethiopian Cuisine - Kitfo raw beef

Ingredients:
For the main dish-
  • 2 tbsp. Niter Kibbeh (Ethiopian Spiced Butter, the recipe is below)
  • 1 tbsp. Mitmita seasoning (an absolute must ingredient! – spicy powdered seasoning containing African bird’s eye chili peppers, cardamom seeds, cloves, and salt)
  • 1 tsp. ground cardamom (have to have this, nothing else will do)
  • 1 lb. ground beef (very lean, and very fresh, purchased from a reputable and dependable meat vendor!)
For the Niter Kibbeh (Ethiopian Spiced Butter)-
  • 6 lb. unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup bishop seeds (sometimes called ajwain, and yet another ingredient you must have)
  • 1/3 cup cardamom seeds (must have)
  • 1/3 cup black cumin seeds (must have)
  • 1/3 cup dried koseret seeds (an African dried woodsy flavored herb, and you guessed it, yet another must ingredient!)
Directions:
For the main dish-
  1. Melt the Niter Kibbeh together with the Mitmita and cardamom in a saucepan until just nicely warmed and the spices are infused with the butter.
  2. In a mixing bowl, break apart the ground beef by hand into little bits, and then pour the warmed, spiced butter mixture over the meat. Mix and blend together thoroughly and vigorously, ensuring all the meat is evenly coated and also further breaking the meat down into nearly a mash.
  3. Serve immediately, if you are eating your Kifto the raw, traditional Ethiopian cuisine way. You can save it, kept refrigerated, for a day or two, to use in cooked dishes.
For the Niter Kibbeh-
  1. Melt the butter in a large pot over low heat.
  2. Put the cardamom seeds, black cumin, and bishop seeds into a coffee grinder or food processor, and pulverize into a powder.
  3. Pour the powder into the melted butter, and then add in the dried koseret seeds.
  4. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil, then reduce heat to a lively simmer and cook for 15 to 20 minutes.
  5. Take the mixture off the burner and set aside to cool. When it reaches room temperature, there will be a milky froth on top. Skim all those solids off, and then carefully pour the clear clarified butter into a suitably sized, sealable storage container and place in the refrigerator to further solidify.

 

Ethiopians love greens, and no feast like we are preparing would be complete without at least one entree like the following.

Abesha Gomen

(Ethiopian Collard Greens with Niter Kibehh)

Gomen

Ingredients:
  • 2 small or 1 large white onions, chopped fine
  • 2 Tbs. Niter Kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced butter, see recipe above in “Kifto” recipe)
  • 1 lb. fresh collard greens
  • 2 Thai Birds-Eye chili peppers, seeded and minced
  • 2 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
  • ½ tsp. freshly grated ginger root
  • ¾ cup vegetable stock
  • ¼ tsp. freshly ground coarse sea salt, or to taste
  • ½ tsp. freshly ground black peppercorns, or to taste
  • 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced fine
Directions:
  1. Strip the collard leaves from the stalks and wash the leaves and stalks well, slice the leaves into thin strips lengthwise, and then crosscut the strips into 1-1/2” pieces. Chop the stalks into small pieces also.
  2. In a saucepan or skillet over medium-high heat, sauté the onions (without any oil) until most of their liquid has been cooked out—a very traditional Ethiopian cuisine cooking technique.
  3. Now add in the Niter Kibbeh and the collard stalks, and sauté until the onions are nicely browned.
  4. Add in the garlic, ginger and chilies, and stir-fry with the onions for 2 to 3 minutes, then add a little of the broth and all the collard greens. Cover the pan and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until the greens have wilted.
  5. Add in the remaining stock, and the diced bell pepper, and mix everything together well.
  6. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and cook at a simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once and a while.
  7. If, after 20 minutes, there is still too much liquid in the pan, remove the cover and raise the heat a bit, cook until the greens are still well moistened, but not swimming in liquid. Stir often if you have to do this, to prevent sticking and burning to the pan bottom.

We’ll round out our Ethiopian cuisine feast with one of their national favorites, featuring “Duba” which is the Amharic (Ethiopian state language) word that means anything in the winter squash family – including pumpkins.

Duba Wat

Duba Wat

Ingredients:
Directions:
  1. Cut your duba in half and scoop out the seeds, then cut each half into 1” wide slices. Cut away the skin, and then chop the orange slices into bite-sized pieces.
  2. Sauté the onions in the olive oil in a cooking pot or deep walled, large skillet, over medium-high heat, until they are fragrant and translucent, but not browned, then add a little water and the berbere, and cook for a couple more minutes.
  3. Now add your duba chunks into the pot, and stir thoroughly to ensure the duba is all well coated with the onions and spices.
  4. Pour just enough water into the pot to bring the level up to about three-fourths of the duba; stir everything well again, cover the pot, and cook until the duba is tender. You will want to stir the mixture every 4 or 5 minutes as it cooks.
  5. When your duba is tender, remove the pot from the burner, add in the basil and cumin, stir together well, and serve.

One of the oddities of traditional Ethiopian cuisine, at least to most of us living in the Western world, is that they really don’t have any concept of or care for having a sweet treat after a full meal.

Dessert

They just don’t have anything that would compare to traditional after-meal sweet dishes that are so popular and prevalent in European, American, even Mexican cuisine cultures.

Maybe it’s the word itself – “dessert” – which is too close to “desert” and may bring to their minds images of this:

ethiopian desert

Which they have plenty too much of already!

But seriously, Ethiopians do like to have snacks, and sometimes those snack treats can be sweet. Here is a recipe popular in Ethiopia, a bread, which can be prepared as sweet or not or spicy or not as you like it.

Dabo Kolo

(Ethiopian Snack Bread)

Ethiopian Cuisine: Dabo Kolo

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups wheat flour
  • 2 tbsp. berbere seasoning
  • 1 tbsp. sugar (or more, if you want sweeter bread)
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • ½ cup water
  • 4 tbsp. butter, softened to room temperature
  • Optional, 1 tbsp. honey (or more, if you are going for a really sweet bread)

Note: if you want a non-sweet Dabo Kolo, delete the sugar (and honey); for a spicier Dabo Kolo, increase the berbere seasoning, and if you like you can also add various herbs, like bishop seeds, ground cardamom, koseret, etc., for a more herb-flavored snack. You may want to add a bit more salt for the “herby” and/or spicy versions, too.

Directions:
  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
  2. Combine and mix all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, and berberé) in a mixing bowl.
  3. Add in water, a little at a time, stirring constantly, until you have a thick paste, then remove the mixture from the bowl and transfer it to a floured kneading surface. Knead it for a few minutes and then roll it out with a rolling pin until you have a sheet of thick dough.
  4. Now add the butter, spread all over the sheet, roll the dough up, and knead for another five minutes. Note: if you are going for the sweeter Dabo Kolo, spread the honey all over the sheet at this time, along with the butter, before rolling the dough back up and kneading it again.
  5. Leave the dough in a large ball shape and allow it rest in a cool place for 10 to 12 minutes.
  6. Now again roll the dough out into a round sheet about ¼” to ½” thick (your preference) that will fit into the bottom of your largest skillet.
  7. Heat the skillet (without any oil or grease) over medium heat. Place the dough “pancake” in the skillet and cook, checking to see when the bottom side is browning. When the bottom is a nice golden brown, flip the pancake over and brown the other side.
  8. Once your Dabo Kolo is well browned on both sides, take the skillet off the burner, and remove the bread, then place it on a cutting board and allow to cool.
  9. Cut the bread into bite-sized pieces. You can enjoy some now, while still warm, and your Dabo Kolo snack breads will also keep well for a long time in air-tight containers.

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