Auntie Tsehai Cooks: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Ethiopian and Eritrean Food Paperback – August 30, 2016

The recipes in this book are authentic, and the spice level can be varied to your taste. All the classic Ethiopian restaurant dishes are here: Doro Wat (spicy chicken), Yebeg Key Wot (spicy lamb stew), Misir Alicha (mild red lentils), Dincha Alicha (mild potatoes and carrots, Yabesha Gomen (collard greens) Key Sir Tibs (mild roasted beets) Medericha Wot (spicy eggplant), and dozens and dozens more. There's even a section on how to make injera, the steamed sourdough bread--although this recipe takes days, and it's easier to order premade injera from suppliers in major cities. The instructions are very clear, and there are helpful pictures of each recipe--and sometimes of each stage in a recipe. There's an index to help with Ethiopian food vocabulary--which was priceless when I went to order Ethiopian spices from Brundo.com to make the recipes. You'll want to have spice mixes like berbere and finishing spices like Mekelesha and Alicha Kimam on hand for true flavor. Ethiopian cooking uses Mekelesha or Alicha Kimam like Indian cooking uses Garam Masala--sprinkled over the dish at the end for that extra special something. I've been cooking recipes from this book and eating homemade Ethiopian food for dinner for about a month now, and there don't seem to be any weak dishes in this lineup.

I have absolutely loved using this cookbook. The authors break down Habesha cooking and don't assume you're already familiar with the ingredients or techniques. I have found it so helpful in learning to cook the food my husband grew up with for our family.

I think this is a good book but I don’t think it’s structured properly. Like for the parts on injera the information is kind of all over the place. I tried following the Teff Injera recipe and when I added the water to the teff, following directions, I ended up with a kind of clay and not batter. I had to rely on another cookbook to perfect my batter.

I bought this book several years ago. I really appreciate how it focuses on technique and approach to cooking. I also appreciate the fact it's mostly vegetarian. I lent it out and unfortunately my copy got misplaced. Just reordered. Only complaint is that it's only available on Amazon and there's no ebook available.

The recipes sounded very boring until I read the section about spices in the beginning - discusses 3 layers of spice: the cooking oil (or niter kebbe ghee); during cooking; and then the finishing spices - for example, a mixture called alicha kimem for the milder dishes, or mekelesha for the spicy dishes.Turns out it's the finishing spices that give it the amazing rich flavor you find in restaurants. But, the recipes in this book don't list the finishing spices, not even "1 tsp mekelesha." So I ordered spice mixtures online, and I'm guessing how much finishing spice to add at the end - I massively over spiced some yellow split peas :-(

I would give it 10 stars if I could! This book is worth the investment. It is very well organized and the items I cooked turned out great. There are several types of injera recipes and for the first time I feel very hopeful that I can make it as well.The authors were very responsive to my questions and I procured Berbere spice through them. This spice is delicious and makes all the difference! It freezes very well.If you are serious about learning to prepare this wonderful cuisine then you should invest in this book!

I liked that the essential components at the root of nearly every dish was covered in depth. Onion paste to the correct color of berbere is covered in fine detail. Expensive, but covers every essential aspect of making this amazing cuisine.

Ethiopian food is a favorite of mine, but intimidating at first. Although the product seems more glorified photocopy, the content is priceless. It is more thorough than other cookbooks that I've found, both in terms of variety of recipes and in scope of directions. The writer takes her time to teach step by step, wisdom acquired through years of experience. Thank you!