Wat

The onions cook dry first, with no fat at all, and the butter goes in after.

Chicken, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 4 large onions, chopped fine
• 5 tablespoons niter kibbeh, as on its own page
• 3 tablespoons berbere
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 cm ginger, grated
• 1.2 kg chicken thighs and drumsticks, skinned
• 4 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 500 ml water

Method

1. THE ONIONS COOK DRY FIRST, WITH NO FAT AT ALL, AND THE BUTTER GOES IN AFTER. Its article calls this the thing that sets a wat apart: the preparation BEGINS WITH CHOPPED ONIONS SLOW-COOKED, WITHOUT ANY FAT OR OIL, IN A DRY SKILLET OR POT UNTIL MUCH OF THEIR MOISTURE HAS BEEN DRIVEN AWAY. FAT, USUALLY NITER KIBBEH, IS THEN ADDED.
2. AND THE REASON IS GIVEN TOO: THIS METHOD CAUSES THE ONIONS TO BREAK DOWN AND THICKEN THE STEW. There is no flour and no cream in a wat. The onions are the sauce, and they cannot collapse like that if they are sealed in fat from the start.
3. SO THE FIRST TWENTY MINUTES LOOK LIKE A MISTAKE. Four onions in a dry heavy pan over a low heat, stirred often. They will squeak, then weep, then go slack and golden. If they catch, the heat is too high; add a spoon of water, not oil.
4. THE NITER KIBBEH GOES IN WHEN THEY ARE ALREADY SOFT. Now it fries rather than steams, and the garlic and ginger go in with it for two minutes.
5. BERBERE OFF THE HEAT, AND GIVE IT A MINUTE IN THE FAT. Three tablespoons is a lot and it is meant to be. Ground chilli scorches in seconds over direct heat, so the pan comes off, the spice goes in, and it goes back on low.
6. THE CHICKEN GOES IN WITH NO BROWNING STEP. It poaches in the sauce rather than searing first, which is why the skin comes off: there is nothing to crisp it.
7. WATER TO HALF COVER, THEN FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AT A BARE SIMMER. It should end up thick enough to hold a spoon upright in the middle.
8. THE EGGS GO IN WHOLE, AT THE END, AND ARE NOT CUT. The article's note on doro wat is that the cooking OFTEN, BUT NOT ALWAYS, INCLUDES THE ADDITION OF PEELED BUT UNDIVIDED HARD-BOILED EGG. Score them shallowly so the sauce takes, ten minutes in the pot.
9. IT IS A FAMILY OF STEWS, NOT ONE RECIPE. The article names doro wat with chicken, siga wat with beef, sanbat wat and misir wat with lentils, and lists chicken, beef, lamb and vegetables as what a wat may be made with. The dry-onion start is what they share.
10. SERVED ON INJERA, AS ON ITS OWN PAGE, AND EATEN WITH IT. No cutlery: the bread is the spoon.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Ethiopia · All recipes