Notes about Recipes in this book

• Baked sweet potatoes with garlic-fermented shrimp butter

  • dinnermints on November 19, 2021

    This was....good, although the garlic fermented shrimp butter (includes lots of avocado) was not so attractive looking. It does taste good, though, and is not hard to make. I don't think it requires a bunch of butter given the richness of avocados - I used 2 T, which is half the amount of butter, but would probably just use 1 T next time (and there might be a next time, since now I have a container of fermented shrimp paste). I served it the first night with roasted salmon, which was ok, but it was even better the next night with a poached egg on top of the shrimp-buttered sweet potato. I had large sweet potatoes and it took closer to 1.5 hours to get them baked through.

• Independence soup (Soup joumou)

  • meggan on December 30, 2020

    This is an elegant tasting soup. The chestnuts are nice but you could probably use the same treatment with other kinds of nuts - I think cashews would be good. Also the nutmeg oil tasted kind of burnt to me even though I followed the recipe. I would suggest just pouring warm oil over the spices not simmering.

• Big ole pork chops with D.R. mangú

  • midwifemel on April 27, 2026

    Interesting mix of flavors. After I cooked the mangu down, I added in my pork chops and then put the other tomato-based sauce on top with the crab. (Used my immersion blender to make this all into a gravy. Cooked on low for another 20 mins. I found that combining the flavors brought them together. Served over rice.

• Lettuce wraps with tamarind-ginger roasted pork and coconut-spiced rice

  • RachelHiltzgerr on March 27, 2026

    Really nice flavors but this was a lot of effort for what it was. I cooked it in the slow cooker for convenience. It made a fun lettuce wrap

• Roasted carrots with ayib and awaze vinaigrette

  • darcie_b on March 27, 2022

    Making the berbere-spice brown butter takes some time; you could add berbere spice to ghee for a shortcut. The awaze vinaigrette is excellent and would be great on almost any roasted vegetable.

• Zaza's doro wat rigatoni

  • Mliston on March 12, 2026

    Delicious! Made rice instead of rigatoni and incorporated the butternut squash. Very flavorful - the berbere I used has a little bit of spice which was nice. I might do a squeeze of lime next time or maybe some spinach. Super simple but you need to plan ahead for the roasting time.

• Papa Ed’s shrimp and grits

  • Acarroll on December 31, 2023

    I really enjoyed the flavors here. Honestly my least favorite part was the shrimp, but I'm not a big shrimp fan. Next time I'd be happy to cook this with a different protein or plant-based. Spices were on point though.

• Leah Chase gumbo

  • meggan on January 01, 2021

    A good gumbo - I rinsed the okra to reduce slime.

  • sheri_iwd5y8 on January 15, 2026

    Love the chorizo. Miss the roux.