Doro Wat (Ethiopian-Style Spicy Chicken) Recipe (2024)

Why not reserve the drippings for the sauce?

Sandy, What a great idea! Meskerem does not do this but when I shared your comment with her, she replied it would add more flavor to the dish if it were used instead of some of the water.

Try straining the onion juice before cooking the onions in oil. Processing the onions creates a lot of juice.They really won't brown because you're basically boiling them in their own juice.I reserve the onion juice, mix it with the lemon juice and vinegar (i use plum vinegar), marinate the chicken in that for 30 min then I brown the chicken in a pan and set it aside until my onions are golden and the spices are mixed in with them.

Use about 2 Tablesoons plus 1 teaspoon cardamom and the fresh ginger. Add more as needed.

I made this in college with an Amharic Ethiopian whom I was dating. At the time we could not find teff with which to make injera. We used rye bread. It was authentic, so too hot and spicy for our white liberal arts college mates in Putney Vermont, but the black students ate it with tears in our eyes and throats constricting, because it was made by a brother from the motherland and we loved him.

Rather than pulling the chicken from the oven to drain the drippings before finishing the bake (and draining again), why not just bake the thighs on a rack in that rimmed baking sheet? Then you can use some or all of the drippings (or none) without losing heat when you open the oven at the 2/3 point.

I have not made this recipe but have found in recipes with similar procedures that reserving the juices from thighs results in a greasy sauce if the juices are not well skimmed of fat. The recipe creator probably thinks it is not worth the effort given the small amount of fat-skimmed juice that results. That's my guess.

When I lived in Ethiopia the only kind of onion I ever saw was shallots, so maybe that would make a difference in how the onion/ginger/garlic mixture behaves. Also if you use a little tomato paste be sure to cook it with the spices to round out the flavor. It would be fine, even more authentic, to cook doro wat the day before you plan to serve it. The skies above Addis Ababa used to be heavy with the smoke of charcoal fires from making doro wat the day before Christmas and Easter.

MUCH simpler and superior flavor: get some berbere (the spice mixture) from an East African market if in a city or on-line. And just chop the onions. Ethopians add tomato or tomato paste as well - deepens the flavor. Simple flat bread (Teff injera is wonderful, but an effort): add hot water 1:1 to flour with some leavening and make plate-sized thin crepes in a non-stick skillet. Do not turn, just cook until top is set and dry.

I have had this with pumpkin and sweet potato instead of chicken. The version my Ethiopian friends make has tomato paste in the sauce as well as the spices. The spice mix is called "dukkos" and some African grocery stores sell it.

Based on some comments, I used the drippings instead of water. And I added tomato paste. While the dish was very good, it was a bit greasy. Next time I would just use water.

It would have been very helpful to have the onion amount listed in approximate cups, rather than just approximate onions. An inexperienced cook, I bought what I thought were large onions. In hindsight they were huge onions, and it took some two hours to turn the vast onion mixture golden over a medium heat. It also knocked the entire recipe off balance, and I wasn’t confident enough to make adjustments. In the end, the chicken was good after discarding 90 percent of the onions mash.

Berbere is the word for chille. My Ethiopian friends make a spice mix called "dukos". It goes into most things, and in an emergency it can be spread on bread or injera for a snack.

Cook about 10 minutes more or until done. Remember that it will be cooked in the sauce too.

I make this often with berbere spice from Savory Spice shop. I use fresh ginger and garlic. I just put the thighs in the sauce and braise them for 45 minutes. My favorite part is the eggs. I make extra eggs for leftovers.

Gosh. Don't throw away the best part! Save the chicken cooking juices to fry the onions/spices in. Cook them down a bit first so there's more liquid schmaltz than plasma.

If using Berbere instead of individual spices, how much should be used?

I’m making this for a dinner party and just learned one guest is vegetarian. Would it work to use tofu in lieu of chicken for 1 serving?

Like other reviews, this was a miss. The onion-ginger-garlic mixture should likely be drained first in order to properly brown it. Mine turned blue like other reviewers but eventually browned after a long time. The final result had a very bitter flavor and I ended adding sone sugar to mask the harshness of the dish. Will not make again.

I would roast the thighs on a rack set in a sheet pan for about 25 minutes and transfer them to a plate. Then I'd drain the drippings into a fat separator. I'd rather wash the rack (in the dw) than try to drain a very hot sheet pan twice. Any juices on the plate can then be added to those from the fat separator, then into the sauce. I love doro wat (even if autocorrect doesn't).

If using berbere from a market, how much should one use? Also, how is it pronounced?

While making this for Hanukkah yesterday, my ginger-onion-garlic blend mixture turned a light BLUE when I began sauteing it. Apparently it's not unheard of and is the result of some reaction between the onion's acids and either the ginger or garlic, and is safe to eat, but I was mighty concerned. Thankfully adding tomato paste (referring to people's notes) and a Berbere spice mix brought it back to its intended color, but man, that was a moment of cold sweat. Delicious, though!

Wish I had read the other comments and looked this up ahead of time - onions and garlic became green/extremely bitter after putting them in the food processor, which is apparently common since they release enzymes if you prepare them that way. Dish was inedible as a result...

Not sure what I did wrong, but the sauce was so bitter as to be inedible. My guess is that I had too much ginger? Disappointed, but I’ll give it another try!

Similar to other folks - my onion mix turned green and it tasted like raw onions even after 30+ minutes of cooking. If I had to do it over again, I would cut up the onion, garlic, and ginger vs. putting it through the food processor. I think that's what did this dish in.

I cut up the boneless skinless thighs into bite size pieces and marinated them in the lemon/vinegar for a few hours. Based on others’ comments, I sautéed the onion mixture for 40 minutes. Using the “1 large onion = 3 cups” conversion, I ended up using 12 cups of quartered onions. Am not a fan of HOT so used mild chili powder instead of cayenne. Made this with Mark Bittman’s injera and found an Ethiopian kale side dish that complemented this really well. A winner!!

Another vote for this recipe being a little off-kilter. 20 minutes for the onions is nowhere near enough, it also would have been helpful to hear what type of onions. I elected to go with 5 and had sweet and I felt that the flavor was significantly off from when I get this at restaurants. I love onion, but in the future would go down to four and maybe white to see if that fixed the flavor. Agree with a comment down a ways that draining the onions would probably have helped a lot

Made as described except halved it, used the drippings in the sauce and lacked cardamom. Pretty tasty! A strange bitter note I tried to mitigate with a streak of honey, which I think worked pretty well. In terms of process, next time I would brown the chicken, set aside, caramelize the onion mixture, spice bomb it, then finish the chicken in a simmer. Similar to how I've made Satsivi (Georgian walnut chicken dish - amazing)

A near total fail for me, with a bright green raw tasting onion slurry that did not improve with forty minutes of cooking and the addition of a tablespoon of sugar. I made this ahead of time and finished in the oven - 350 degrees for 25 minutes. I was pleased that the final product was edible, though not much more. I thought we were headed for takeout...

Great recipe. I use the chicken drippings, and have found that between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon of cayenne (which is way hotter than Chile powder) is plenty spicy.