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Check this thumbnail from City Paper, “Hands-On Dining--Pittsburgh Gets Its First Ethiopian Restaurant”
The raw material of Ethiopian cuisine is stuff you already eat: chicken, beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, lentils, peppers, string beans, chick peas, cabbage and collard greens. Any dish called a wat gets its kick from berbere or awaze, finely ground powders of red pepper mixed with complementary spices. (Think of them as Ethiopian curries.) An alicha dish is mild, seasoned with turmeric, ginger and their tamer kin. Some Ethiopian dishes use vegetable oil as a saute. But meat dishes often use niter kibbee, a clarified butter, similar to the Indian ghee, that bubbles and simmers with spices during the clarification process to give it a rich aroma and flavor.
Finally, there’s injera, the staple bread of Ethiopia, made with a grain called teff. But injera - spongy, unleavened, and prepared from a fermented batter for a sourdough taste - is more than just bread: It's also the table setting and the cutlery.
Ethiopian food comes served on a large round platter covered with injera, with portions of each colorful dish arranged on the injera for all to share. Traditionally, there's no silverware: When the platter arrives, so does a separate basket of injera. Then, you break off pieces of injera, scoop up some food, and eat it.
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