The second year for us has started off great, we are almost half way into the first semester, unbelievably! And it seems like this year will fly by. Also the second year is great because our town really understands us and our quirks and we understand them and their quirks. So getting work done now seems to be a little easier than before which is a huge plus. We will try to write more about our projects this year, our classrooms and our Peace Corps experience. But something really awesome happened yesterday. Sylvia and I learned how to make doro wot (sabhe dorho) with our wonderful teacher friend Birhan. Birhan has been and continues to be one of our best friends here, she takes care of us, explains funky culture things and makes us feel at home here. She used to live in our compound with us but had to move during the remodel (see house flipping video). So being the food lovers that we are we have decidedly fallen in love with this national dish called doro wot (chicken stew) and we really wanted to learn how to make this. It is a spicy chicken stew filled with onions, garlic, berbere, butter and happiness. Of course, we eat this explosion of flavors with your good ol’ friend injeera. So we asked Birhan if she would help us and of course she was very excited because this is a dish that usually only prepared on special holidays due to the labor intensity and price of meat. So this is how you do it.
First, Sylvia went to the market with Birhan to buy all the groceries. The market is crazy on Saturday and always a fun, hectic time. She had to get the groceries for the week, as well as the special ingredients for our special doro wot, including one live chicken. So Birhan and Sylvia gathered all the goodies and brought back home. Here is a good time to list the recipe that we concocted as we cooked with Birhan, check it out:
1 whole chicken
1 kilo red onions (12 small-medium sized)
10 small ripe tomatoes (roma size)
1 head of garlic
1 tbsp. spiced butter
6-8 hard boiled eggs
10 tbsp. berbere (I don’t know how else to measure this, we just counted the heaping spoonfuls)
Vegetable oil
Salt to taste
Injeera (duh!)
It not that many ingredients to make this taste sensation.
So first you chop up all of the onions very fine. You could actually use a food processor if you have one, but we chopped them by hand. Add these onions to your pot with a cup of water and let sweat covered for about one hour. The water will evaporate. In the meantime, butcher your chicken. Butchering our chicken turned into quite the chore because only men are allowed to kill the animal, and since Birhan is a strict Orthodox it must be a man who fasts on Wednesday and Friday and who is an Orthodox Christian. I do not fast and am not an Orthodox Christian so I did not work out. We thought the young boy in the compound could kill the chicken for us, but apparently his aunt told him that it is not okay to kill a chicken after 1pm. So I took this chore to the streets and found a nice gentleman who lives across the street to come kill our chicken. He hesitated at first, probably out of confusion and then came over and killed the chicken. He has to say a pray before he kills it and there is a certain way to kill it without cutting the head all the way off, and it must be fast to alleviate suffering, I think. Finally, we had the chicken ready to be butchered. Birhan had hot water, dumped it on the chicken and then ripped the feathers off very quickly. After the majority of the feathers were off she lit some paper on fire, inside of our house and put the chicken over the fire to get rid of all the small feathers that do not come off. Then we rip off the skin and save it for the dish. Then we begin to cut up the chicken. In America we cut the chicken in 8 pieces typically, leg, thigh, breast and wing. But here we cut it up in 12 pieces which includes the rib cage with chicken tenders attached and the neck. Here we butcher the chicken and wash it liberally with water. Then with lime juice. We let the chicken sit in the lime juice for about 30 minutes or so.
In the meantime our onions are continuing to cook over our charcoal fire. Now we have to chop up the tomatoes. We chop them into tiny pieces, like chopped tomatoes from a can. Again if you had a food processor this would work famously. Now once the onions are finished and are completely transparent we add the tomatoes to the mixture, about 1 cup of vegetable oil and the berbere. We also add about 1 cup of water or until the sauce mixture is covered. At this point we stir it altogether. This is the base of your stew. It will be a dark reddish color and should be pretty thick from all of the onions, which really act as the binder in this sauce. Now you are ready to add the chicken. When the sauce is at a good boil it is time to dump the chicken in one by one. Now again stir this around and make sure the sauce is thin enough the chicken is covered. You may have to add another cup or two of water here. Don’t worry about adding too much because it will evaporate and reduce. Now stir again, cover and let simmer for about one hour to two hours, depending on the size and age of your chicken.
Now after the chicken has stewed and it smells like heaven in your home, it is time to add the finishing touches. Now add the spiced butter, chopped garlic, a couple tablespoons of salt and the peeled hard boiled eggs. Again stir these gently in and let simmer for another 15 minutes. Take the stew off the heat and let sit for another 10-15 minutes. At this point your stew will separate, the oil and butter going to the top of your dish, DO NOT WORRY, this is what is supposed to happen. The oil will get all soaked up by the injeera and it will be awesome.
As our time slips away quickly in Ethiopia, we are very glad to have learned how to make our favorite dish. Days like this we will treasure forever. We may not be able to see Birhan in America, but at least we will be able to smell and eat the amazing doro wot, which she taught us to cook.
I am working on Doro Wot video, but the internet is too slow to upload right now....stay tuned.