Ya Fas­sikah Kita/​Nay Wure­nah Kicha 

Ethiopi­an Matzah

Feel free to use just one type of teff flour in this spe­cial Ethiopi­an matzah that is suit­able for Passover because it does not rise, leav­en, or fer­ment. My grand­moth­er made it every morn­ing dur­ing Passover, mix­ing the bat­ter right after she woke up and serv­ing the matzah for break­fast. My fam­i­ly adhered so strict­ly to Jew­ish law that they ate it plain or with flaxseed: less strin­gent eaters may enjoy it with Niter Kibbeh.

Makes 3 to 4 large matzahs

½ cup (115 grams) ivory teff flour 

½ cup (115 grams) brown teff flour

1 tea­spoon fine sea salt

2 cups (480 grams) luke­warm water

1 table­spoon veg­etable oil (omit if using a non­stick pan)

In a large bowl, use your hands to com­bine the teff flours, salt, and luke­warm water, break­ing up clumps of flour, until smooth.

Warm a 12-inch skil­let over high heat. If the skil­let does not have a non­stick coat­ing, add the oil and swirl to coat the pan.

Pour 1 cup bat­ter into the cen­ter of the pan and use the bot­tom of a ladle to spread it over the sur­face of the pan. Cook until dry on top, about 3 min­utes. Push a wide spat­u­la under­neath the matzah, and care­ful­ly flip it over. Reduce the heat to medi­um-low and cook until the matzah is com­plete­ly cooked through, about 3 min­utes. Repeat with the remain­ing bat­ter. Serve immediately.

Doro Wot / Der­ho Tsebhi

Spicy Chick­en Drum­stick Stew

Doro wot is per­haps the most well- known Ethiopi­an dish: The mere pres­ence of this rich, fiery chick­en stew sig­ni­fies a rite of pas­sage or a spe­cial occa­sion. Cut­ting up a whole chick­en for doro wot is among the first skills that Ethiopi­an Jew­ish moth­ers teach their daugh­ters. And at meals, each fam­i­ly mem­ber is allo­cat­ed a spe­cif­ic piece of meat based on their sta­tus in the house­hold: hon­ored guests might get the thigh or breast, chil­dren the wings. At Ethiopi­an wed­dings, the bride and groom are fed by their close friends, a way of show­ing love, respect, and friend­ship known as Gur­sha. While mak­ing a tru­ly fin­ger-lick­ing doro wot is a lengthy process, I have care­ful­ly stream­lined my ver­sion over the years to max­i­mize the fla­vor. (Note: Bee­jhy includes two oth­er vari­a­tions of this recipe in the cookbook.)

Serves about 8

2 pounds chick­en drum­sticks (8 – 10), skinned

2 table­spoons fresh lemon juice

1 table­spoon fine sea salt

8 large eggs

6 cups Kulet (recipe follows)

In a large bowl, com­bine the drum­sticks, lemon juice, and salt. Add cold water to cov­er and swish the water around to mix. Soak for at least 10 min­utes and up to 1 hour.

Pre­pare a large bowl of cold water and ice and have near­by. In a medi­um pot, com­bine the eggs with cold water to cov­er. Bring to a boil over medi­um heat and cook the eggs for 8 min­utes. Remove the eggs from the pot and place in the ice bath until com­plete­ly cooled.

Peel the eggs, leav­ing them whole. Make four shal­low, even­ly spaced cuts from top to bot­tom on each egg, scor­ing the white but stop­ping at the yolk.

Mean­while, in a large pot, heat the kulet over medi­um heat, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until simmering.

Drain the water from the drum­sticks. Wash the drum­sticks well under run­ning water, mas­sag­ing the chick­en and rins­ing sev­er­al times. Sub­merge in the kulet. Bring back to a sim­mer and cook gen­tly, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly and reduc­ing the heat if the sauce begins to boil, until the drum­sticks are com­plete­ly cooked through, 25 to 30 min­utes. Dur­ing the last 5 min­utes of cook­ing, add the eggs and gen­tly stir to com­plete­ly sub­merge them in the sauce. Serve warm.

Kulet / Silsi

Fra­grant Ethiopi­an Stew Base

The foun­da­tion of all thick, spicy Ethiopi­an stews starts with slow-cook­ing onions, gar­lic, gin­ger, and berbere until they melt into one anoth­er. Let this crim­son-col­ored base bub­ble for a few hours, and you can have din­ner all week. Use it to make chick­en stew, fish stew, red lentil stew, or all of them at once. Feel free to halve or dou­ble the recipe, too. Ethiopi­an cooks typ­i­cal­ly chop the onions fine­ly by hand. I make good use of the food proces­sor to short­en this task, with the same lus­cious results.

Makes about 16 cups

10 – 12 large yel­low onions, peeled and quartered

6 cups veg­etable oil, plus more if necessary

2 cups Berbere (recipe follows)

4 tea­spoons minced garlic

2 tea­spoons minced fresh ginger

3 table­spoons fine sea salt

8 cups hot water

6 ounces toma­to paste (or 12 ounces, if you pre­fer less heat)

1 table­spoon Ground Roast­ed Korari­ma (recipe fol­lows) or ground cardamom

In a food proces­sor, puree the onions until smooth.

Pour the onions into a large pot and bring to sim­mer over high heat. Cook, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly and reduc­ing the heat if the onions begin brown­ing, until most of the water has evap­o­rat­ed, 35 to 40 minutes.

Stir in the oil and sim­mer for about 5 min­utes to incor­po­rate. Stir in the berbere, gar­lic, gin­ger, and salt. The mix­ture should be moist; if it appears dry, add more hot water, about ½ cup at a time. Cov­er the pot and cook over medi­um heat until the onions have tak­en on a red hue, for anoth­er 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the hot water and toma­to paste and stir well. Bring to a sim­mer, then reduce the heat and cook uncov­ered, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until the fla­vors blend and the stew base becomes fra­grant, about 1 hour.

Remove from the heat and stir in the korari­ma. Let cool.

Stor­age: store in an air­tight con­tain­er in the refrig­er­a­tor for up to 2 weeks, or in the freez­er for up to 3 months.

Berbere

Aro­mat­ic Ethiopi­an Spice Blend

This fla­vor­ful, aro­mat­ic sea­son­ing blend says a lot about the cook who mix­es it. I regard this spice mix­ture less as a for­mu­la and more as a way to express myself. I start mine with plen­ty of dried chili pep­per, as is tra­di­tion­al, but then I add a healthy dose of korari­ma, because I love the nut­ty, herbal notes it adds. My mother’s berbere was heavy on ser­ra­no pep­per, basil, and tiny nigel­la seeds, infus­ing her cook­ing with a sig­na­ture spicy bite. While I wel­come the grow­ing num­ber of gro­cery stores that car­ry berbere in the spice sec­tion, I find that many of them over­do it on the papri­ka and cumin, giv­ing food a much flat­ter taste. Feel free to use my recipe as a start­ing point for yours, adding more of any fla­vors you want to empha­size, while decreas­ing or omit­ting any you may dislike.

Makes about 2½ cups

1 cup paprika

½ cup cayenne pepper

3 table­spoons Ground Roast­ed Korari­ma (recipe fol­lows) or ground cardamom

2 table­spoons ground ginger

1 table­spoon onion powder

1 table­spoon ground coriander

1 table­spoon ground cumin

1 table­spoon black pepper

2 table­spoons fine sea salt

1½ tea­spoons ground cloves 

1½ tea­spoons ground cinnamon 

1½ tea­spoons ground nutmeg 

1½ tea­spoons ground fenugreek

In a small bowl, mix all the ingre­di­ents togeth­er and trans­fer to an air­tight jar.

Stor­age: store at room tem­per­a­ture for up to 6 months.

Ground Roast­ed Korarima

Korari­ma — an Ethiopi­an spice relat­ed to car­damom — is a defin­ing fla­vor in my food: Its com­plex, nut­ty, flo­ral qual­i­ty perks up so many dish­es. When you first pur­chase korari­ma, it will most like­ly come in lit­tle seeds that you need to grind into a pow­der to use in my recipes. Here is how I get the most fla­vor out of these tiny seeds. You can use as many or as few seeds as you have; vary the pan size accordingly.

Makes about ¼ cup

About ⅓ cup korari­ma seeds

Warm a medi­um non­stick pan over medi­um heat. Add the korari­ma seeds and roast until shiny and fra­grant, 2 to 3 min­utes. Trans­fer to a plate or bowl and let cool completely.

Trans­fer to a mor­tar and pes­tle or spice grinder and grind into a pow­der. Trans­fer to an air­tight container.

Stor­age: store at room tem­per­a­ture for up to 3 months.

From GUR­SHA: Time­less Recipes for Mod­ern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond © 2025 by Tevletz Barhany-John. Excerpt­ed by per­mis­sion of Alfred A. Knopf, a divi­sion of Pen­guin Ran­dom House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be repro­duced or reprint­ed with­out per­mis­sion in writ­ing from the publisher.