Customer Reviews

Cooking the East African Way (Easy Menu Ethnic Cookbooks)

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This entire series of Easy Menu Ethnic Cookbooks are wonderful for kids. I used them frequently when I was a nanny, and my boys loved them. The recipes are simple and not too intimidating for chefs-in-training! The bits of background information on the culture, history, and sample menus are wonderful as well. From someone with several years of childcare experience, and a woman who loves to cook (especially ethnic foods), this series of books are highly recommended to anyone who wants to introduce their kids to a variety of cultural foods.

This is a good book for your 10 year old. There are exactly 22 recipes
in the book and no unfamiliar ingrediants. I think the spiciest
dish calls for a a tsp. of red pepper. The most exotic spice I saw
was cumin. It does have a few pretty pictures.
For an adventurous cook forget this book it is to African cooking
like taco bell is to Mexican cooking.

Cooking the East African Way is a great introduction to cooking food from East Africa. This cookbook contains recipes from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, and Somalia. The authors carefully explain the food culture of East Africa. For example, how many East Africans only eat once or twice a day and eat very fresh food due to the lack of electricity and refrigeration.

This book is geared to Americans who want to learn to make East African recipes so the recipes use American measurements, utensils, and methods. There are two sample dinner menus in this cookbook along with the shopping list for each dinner menu. Cooking the East African Way includes basic cooking instructions and explanations of cooking equipment, terms, safety, special ingredients, along with low-fat cooking tips and metric conversions.

Cooking the East African Way includes the following recipes:

Chapatis (from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda)
Rice Pancakes (from Kenya)
Meat on a Stick (from Ethiopia, Uganda)
Samusas
Avocado and Papaya Salad
Greens with Coconut Milk (from Kenya and Uganda)
Plantains
Choroko Sauce (from Uganda)
Groundnut Sauce
Banana and Meat Stew
Luku (from Ethiopia)
Meat Curry
Fresh Steamed Fish (from Uganda)
Vegetable Casserole (from Uganda)
Pilau
Vermicelli and Raisins (from Kenya)
Kashata
Ethiopian Flatbread (also known as injera from Ethiopia)
Rice with Fish (Wali na Samaki)
Lamb and Rice (Skudahkharis)
Lentil Salad (Yamiser Selatta)
East African Plantain Soup (Supa ya Ndizi)


This is a great starting cookbook for East African cooking. There are color pictures for almost every recipe along with clear instructions and cultural explanations.

Two recipes missing from this cookbook are the recipes for ugali and sukuma wiki. These are two staple dishes in Kenya that are eaten almost every day.

I was VERY DISAPPOINTED with this purchase. This is more of a "booklet" than an actual book and the recipes are very limited. It was overpriced for what it is and, it has made me very reluctant to order more ethnic cookbooks without the benefit of a prior physical review!!