Doro Wat is Ethiopian chicken stew with eggs. Seasoned with berbere spice mix and cooked in spice butter, it is flavorful comfort food from the region.

Ethiopian Cuisine
This month Food of the World is traveling from West African nation of Senegal to Northeast African nation of Ethiopia. Ethiopia shares a border with other African nations Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya. It’s capital is the largest city in the country, Addis Ababa.
The best known Ethiopian food is injera, a sourdough flatbread made with teff flour. Side dishes are served on injera and eaten by scooping them with pieces of injera.
Side dishes consist of meat and lentil stews called wats, and vegetable side dishes. Almost all the side dishes are flavored with berbere spice mix and cooked in niter kibbeh, a spiced clarified butter.
Stew
I made a doro wat, a chicken stew using homemade berbere and clarified butter. Traditionally stew is cooked in niter kibbeh, spiced clarified butter. This my take on doro wat to suit my palate.
This chicken stew is also my day 11 post for this month's Cooking Carnival, Cooking with Protein Rich Ingredients. I had planned on doing another ingredient this week and chicken in week 5. I swapped the ingredients just so I could used one post for both the events.
Adapted: African Bites
📖 Recipe
Doro Wat
Ingredients
Marinade
- 1.2 lbs 560 grams cut Chicken (I bought whole chicken and used half of it)
- ¼ teaspoon White Pepper Powder
- 1 teaspoon Chili Powder my addition
- ½ teaspoon Salt
Stew
- 1 ½ - 2 tablespoon Niter Kibbeh ~ Spiced Butter I used clarified butter, can substitute it with cooking oil
- 2 tablespoon Oil
- 1 medium - large Onion about 1 cup when chopped
- 1 – 1 ½ tablespoon Ginger Garlic Paste
- 1 ¼ tablespoon
Berbere Spice Mix - ½ teaspoon Chili Powder I substituted paprika with chili powder
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Coriander Powder my addition
- 2 teaspoon Tomato Sauce
- 2 Large Eggs boiled and peeled
- 1 cup Water
- Lime Juice to taste I didn’t use
Instructions
Marination
- Cut chicken with skin, into big pieces. I used ½ whole chicken. I usually remove the skin of the chicken when making curry. With habit, I removed the skin and later realized chicken with skin is used for this recipe.
- Marinate the chicken with salt, pepper powder and chili powder for at least ½ hour.
Stew Preparation
- Boil eggs, peel and keep aside.
- Heat spiced butter (substitute with clarified butter or oil) in a saucepan and saute onions until dark brown on medium flame, about 7-10 minutes.
- To the same onion pan, add oil, ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute until ginger smell is gone.
- Add berbere spice, coriander powder, chili powder and stir for a minute or two until it has a nice brown color.
- Add tomato paste and mix until blended.
- Add chicken, stir until spices coat the chicken, cover and cook on medium flame for 2-3 minutes until chicken is semi cooked.
- Add water, cover and cook for another few minutes until stew comes to a boil and is almost cooked.
- Add eggs and continue to cook until chicken is cooked and stew has reached a desired consistency.
- Adjust seasoning, sprinkle lime juice and turn off the flame.
- Serve warm with injera or with steamed rice, as I did. Traditionally it is served with injera.
Notes
- Nutrition - values are approximate.
Nutrition
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Tori says
What is the spice level?
Usha Rao says
Spice level is medium to spicy. For a mild spice level, you can skip chili powder when marinating chicken.
PRADNYA says
i remember watching a documentary on ethiopian food - plenty of injera topped with all kinds of meat stews...this stew looks a lot richer and bubblier and am sure tastes amazing
Priya Srinivasan says
What a striking color usha, !!
Srivalli Jetti says
Wow the stew with the saucepan is a great click..very nice!
Sowmya:) says
Looks beautiful! Lovely clicks
Smruti | Herbivore Cucina says
Lovely stew for meat lovers I am sure!!
themadscientistskitchen says
Love the stew Usha, The colours are so yum and of course since I do not know anything about cooking chicken I cannot comment but the ingredients sound yummm.
Suja Ram says
Love the deep colour of the stew. Clicks are so lively.
Pavani says
That is one flavorful and delicious looking Ethiopian chicken stew. I missed this month's FOW event, got too much going on. I love Ethiopian food.
Suma Gandlur says
I had made the berbere for one of the previous marathons and loved the spice blend. Your base sounds flavorful with that berbere mix.
Sandhya Ramakrishnan says
Great color and lovely stew!
Kalyani says
Uh oh :(( I missed the FOTW event this month too ! Stew looks delicious , perfect clicks too
Vaishali Sabnani says
Great looking stew .
srividhya says
Rich stew.. Need to check out the ethiopian seasoning..
Simple Living Eating (@SimpleLivingEat) says
Your chicken looks so delicious. What a rich stew. I love the Ethiopian seasoning. Pinned it.
Priya Suresh says
Slurp, this stew looks absolutely fantastic and flavourful, cant wait to give a try soon.
Gayathri Kumar says
That is a lovely stew..
Nalini says
The stew got a lovely color Usha,looks so tempting.The pictures came out well and I like it..