On the whole, Ethiopian recipes are usually quite simple; they are typically a combination of meats, usually beef, lamb, or chicken, along with various indigenous vegetables and spices. Usually, recipes do not use any sort of pork, because of religious beliefs of the area. Also, many dishes tend to utilize very similar ingredients as bases during preparation. Some of these common items include niter kebbeh, a mixture of butter, garlic, and other spices, berbere, a popular seasoning consisting of a combination of chile powder and other spices, and fenugreek, a spice made from a local seed that gives Ethiopian cuisine a truly one of a kind flavor. Another item that is not necessarily an ingredient in many Ethiopian meals, but is definitely an important addition to any dish is injera, a large piece of flat bread similar to sourdough bread, which is sometimes combined with other common ingredients to form snacks and breakfast food items.
Ethiopian cuisine characteristically consists of spicy vegetable and meat dishes, usually in the form of wat (or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread, which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour. Ethiopians eat with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. No utensils are used.
Furthermore, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church prescribes a number of fasting periods, including Wednesdays, Fridays, and the entire Lenten season, so Ethiopian cuisine contains many dishes that are vegan. This has also led Ethiopian cooks to develop a rich array of cooking oil sources: besides sesame and safflower, Ethiopian cuisine also uses nug (also spelled noog, known also as niger seed).
For more information on Ethiopian cuisine visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_cuisine
This will be an interesting week, hopefully the ingredients for the Ethiopian dishes will not be so hard to get.