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Ethiopian cuisine · Host a night

Host an Ethiopian night

Two tables: a doro wat feast on injera, and a tibs night that is still eaten by hand.

An Ethiopian house does not give you a bowl of stew and a side of bread. Injera is the method. Doro wat marks a holiday or a guest. Tibs is the faster sauté for a smaller circle.

Cook the free stew and the free bread together for the feast. Keep tibs as its own night. Coffee after.

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A feast, a holiday, or the guest you want to honor.

Doro wat

Chicken and eggs on injera. The bread is the plate. No forks.

Doro wat with eggs on a communal injera platter.

Doro wat is a long onion-and-berbere stew with chicken and hard-boiled eggs. It is ladled onto a sheet of injera. Extra injera is rolled beside it. Lentils or greens can ring the chicken; they are part of the same platter, not a second course.

Do not serve a Western bread basket. Do not plate the chicken in a bowl with injera on the side like toast. Hands, right side, your wedge. Coffee from the jebena after the tray is finished.

The clock

  1. Days before: ferment the injera batter.
  2. Morning: cook the onions down; add berbere and chicken.
  3. Before guests: bake injera on the mitad; boil the eggs.
  4. At the table: one platter, wash water, coffee later.

Cook these free recipes

  • Doro Wat — The free feast stew.
  • Injera — The free plate and utensil.
A weeknight. The pan can still arrive sizzling.

Tibs night

Sautéed beef on injera. Awaze on the side. Not a second main beside doro wat.

Beef tibs on injera with awaze, a smaller Ethiopian night.

Tibs is quicker: beef or lamb with onion and pepper, sometimes finished in a hot pan at the table. It still sits on injera. Awaze is the dip.

This is not the holiday chicken. Do not cook doro wat as a starter. One platter, still by hand.

The clock

  1. If you have batter: bake injera first.
  2. Hot pan: meat, onion, pepper.
  3. At the table: injera, awaze, the sizzle.

Cook these free recipes

  • Beef Tibs — The free quicker sauté — still on injera.

Set one platter in the middle. Find a mitad, a jebena, or a mesob the same way as the pantry — a search, not a single listing that disappears.

Find a mitad on Amazon Find a jebena on Amazon Find a mesob on Amazon

When you want the rest of the map — more wats, breads, and the coffee extras — Authentic Ethiopian Cuisine is the book that keeps the table going. Read how the table is set before people arrive.

Keep cooking

The Ethiopian pantry, pots, and table

The spices, mixes, and hearths that belong to Ethiopian cooking — then the people around them, and the kitchens still joining the table.

Open the Ethiopian pantry Open Ethiopian cookware The Ethiopian table Host an Ethiopian night Join the community