Doro Wot

An oldie but a goodie from Ethiopia! Chicken is expensive there (or was when I lived there), so this would normally be served around the holidays, the Nativity and Pascha especially. Any day's a good day for doro wot though, and since I was in need of a pick-me-up I decided to try my hand at this. (It's been a long time since I made it last.)



Doro Wot

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of nit'ir qibay or butter
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion (chopped)
4 to 6 cloves of garlic (minced/crushed)

Doro wot over rice.

2 teaspoons of powdered ginger
1 tablespoon* of berbere
1 cup of water**
1 pound of chicken (cubed)
Pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
2 hard-boiled eggs (shelled)
Injera or rice (as desired)

*This is for a very mild doro wot. Four or more tablespoons would result in something closer to how doro wot would normally be served.
**Or 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of red wine.

Directions
1) Lord, bless!
2) Melt the butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and saute the onion until it's begun to caramelize.
3) Add the ginger and berbere and saute for another minute or two.
4) Add the water to the skillet and thoroughly blend the onion and spices into the water, making sure to keep anything from sticking to the bottom and burning.
5) Add the chicken and cover the skillet, stirring occasionally until the chicken has cooked (roughly 30 minutes).
6) Once the wot has cooked down and thickened sufficiently add salt and pepper to taste and then the hard-boiled eggs, allowing the latter to heat through before removing the wot from the heat.
7) Normally doro wot would be eaten as is with injera, but if the latter isn't available to you doro wot is perfectly lovely with some rice or baguette. (If you serve it over rice, make the rice with some chili powder and salt to keep it from making the resulting blend too bland.) Whatever you do, enjoy!