Ethiopia: Recipes and Traditions from the Horn of Africa

A James Beard Award-winning cookbook that serves as both a comprehensive introduction to Ethiopian cuisine and a love letter to the country’s food culture. Yohanis Gebreyesus, who trained at the Paul Bocuse Institute in Lyon before returning to his native Addis Ababa, guides you through the essential dishes of Ethiopia with the confidence of a chef who grew up eating this food and spent years mastering it professionally.

Why Start Here

This is the most complete and approachable single-volume introduction to Ethiopian cooking available in English. Gebreyesus covers all the foundational dishes: doro wat (the iconic chicken stew simmered with berbere and spiced butter), injera (the fermented teff flatbread that is both plate and utensil), siga tibs (flash-fried beef cubes), and a generous selection of vegetarian dishes like gomen (collard greens with ginger and garlic) and azifa (green lentil salad). The vegetarian range is particularly valuable, since Ethiopian cuisine has one of the richest meatless traditions in the world, rooted in the fasting practices of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

What sets this book apart from other Ethiopian cookbooks is how Gebreyesus weaves cultural context through every recipe. He explains why certain dishes are prepared for specific occasions, how regional variations shape the cuisine, and what the communal act of eating together means in Ethiopian life. You learn not just how to cook the food but why it matters.

The photography by Peter Cassidy is vivid and respectful, capturing both the finished dishes and the landscapes, markets, and people behind them. This is a book that makes you want to cook and travel in equal measure.

What to Expect

A beautifully produced 224-page hardcover that balances accessibility with authenticity. The recipes are clearly written with ingredient lists that are manageable for home cooks, though you will need to source a few specialty items like teff flour, berbere spice blend, and niter kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced butter). Gebreyesus includes recipes for making these foundational ingredients from scratch, so you can build your pantry from the ground up. The difficulty level is genuinely approachable: most dishes involve patience rather than technical complexity. Stews simmer slowly, spice blends are toasted and ground, and injera requires fermentation time. If you can plan ahead and follow instructions carefully, you can make authentic Ethiopian food at home.