Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
And now for something completely different
Doro wat . . .
This looks nothing like MY doro wat. But you get the idea.
I had a yen for a nice doro wat tonight. Ethiopian curries are like none other; I think it’s the combo of heat, spice, and sweetness from the berbere**. But man, is this a bit of work. Would have been easy on the weekend, but more than I really wanted to do on a week night. Anyway, here’s what you do:
Sprinkle salt on your chicken and throw it into a gallon bag. Add about a half cup of lemon juice, and let it sit for a while, turning the bag over and over every 10-15 minutes. You’ll be doing this while you work on the rest of the dinner. What kind of chicken? I used thigh/leg combos, three of them, but in the future I think I will use boneless meat cut into large chunks. Only trouble with that idea is, it’ll cook much faster, so I’m not sure whether the chicken will cook too quickly, well before the stew has a chance to develop its flavor.
Second, the berbere*:
* 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
* 1/4 teaspoon cardamon seeds
* 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
* 1/4 teaspoon whole allspice
* 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds, whole
* 1/2 teaspoon coriander seed
* 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika (hot)
* 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
* 2 teaspoons salt
Combine the first six ingredients (cumin through coriander) and roast in a frying pan until they are smoking. Then grind them in a coffee grinder. You know, the coffee grinder you only use to grind spices in, right? Or else your coffee’s gonna have a bit of zing for a while.
Add the remaining ingredients, stir well. Good. Now you have a berbere.
Next, I sliced and chopped two very large onions (probably about four cups of onions, maybe six) and six garlic cloves. Melt one stick of butter and saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to brown a little and most of them are golden. Do this is a Dutch oven.
Add the berbere, stir well, and then add a cup of dry white wine to deglaze the Dutch oven.
Immediately add one six ounce can of tomato paste and stir well. Add water as needed to generate a thick but still liquid-y stew. Add your chicken (without the lemon juice) and coat well with the stew. When the stew is simmering, cover the Dutch oven and put it into a 350 F oven for about one hour.
I served it over rice. I’m crazy enough to make doro wat on a week night, not so crazy as to make injeera. Because, you know, that would have required some foresight and planning.
This was GOOD. Messy, but good. Good enough for company, except it’s so damn messy.
D.
*This is my adaptation of berbere, since I didn’t have all the ingredients necessary to follow this recipe.
**Okay, to be precise, the sweetness comes from the onion and tomato paste, not from the berbere 😉
Oh, this looks good.
I would think that boneless thighs would work well here, split into quarters. I may give this a try this weekend.
If I were to use smaller chunks of chicken, I’d probably shorten the cooking time — perhaps as little as 30 minutes might do it, certainly 45 would be enough.
On-the-bone chicken has so much more flavor, though. How about using Chinese-style cut-up chicken chunks? Just whack! with a big ol’ Chinese cleaver…
Oops! Forgot one ingredient. At the stewing step, before I added the chicken, I added about a heaping tablespoonful of freshly grated ginger. I don’t think omitting it would make a huge difference, but the end result would be less complex. Sorry.
ps: Yes, of course this would work, and would probably be even better than cooking the chicken in big pieces. All that good marrow.