Back in November 2006, Travel+Leisure had a decent article about food in Addis Ababa, presented by Chef Marcus Samuelsson. Here is how he summarizes the fundamentals:
Our plate of injera arrived with mounds of shiro (a purée of yellow peas enriched with niter kibe and laced with fenugreek) and doro wet (a hearty chicken stew in a sauce of long-simmered browned onions, chiles, and ginger). There were chopped collard greens tossed with a creamy farmer’s cheese, and kitfo, a mince of raw, lean beef massaged with spiced butter, and the fiery, aromatic paste of bird’s-eye chiles, black cardamom, and salt called mitmita awaze.
"Ethiopian cuisine is as rigid as Korean," Samuelsson said as we tucked into the platter. "You’ll always have injera, the shiro, the doro wet." Differences from restaurant to restaurant, or house to house, he noted, are in the variety of dishes served above and beyond those basics, and in each cook’s own recipes for the cuisine’s fundamental condiments: berbere, mitmita, and niter kibe.
