May 8, 2006
Doro What?
What's so special about doro wat -- the chicken stew served by just about every Ethiopian restaurant around here? For us, it's the stew's heady sauce of red hot pepper and peppery ginger, blended with a dozen other spices, heated and working in harmony, and pounded into a paste called Berberé. It lingers on the tongue. Iit doesn’t seem very hot until after you swallow, when a pleasant slow burn slides all the way down.
In the now-out-of-print Recipes: African Cooking (Foods of the World), deceased South African author and ancient culture guru Laurens van der Post extolled the virtues of Ethiopian cuisine in 1970, well before wars and famine branded a lingering sterotype of Ethiopians into the American consciousness.
Specifically, van der Post was particularly enamored of the complexity of Berberé -- a blend of ginger, cardamom, coriander, fenugreek, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, onions, garlic, wine, salt, paprika, red pepper, black pepper, and water. The spices are toasted, blended with the onions and garlic and boiled down with wine and water until the mixture becomes a thick paste. Van der Post called Berberé "the pivot of Ethiopian cuisine ... the universal seasoning for everything from a rich man's delicacy to a poor man's chunk of bread." It is what sofrito is to Puerto Rican cuisine. And it is showcased well when combined with chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and more spices and stewed and turned into doro wat.
The stew is the country’s national dish and a holiday treat for Ethiopians today. Historically, making doro wat was a very serious business, and it remains so in rural areas. If a prospective bride doesn't make the stew properly, the wedding may be called off, says Elias Wondimu, an Ethiopian ex-pat who now runs a publishing business in Los Angeles and is a frequent patron of D.C. and L.A.’s Ethiopian restaurants. According to Wondimu, the bride-to-be is expected to work in her in-laws’ kitchen over the course of three days killing the chicken, draining it, plucking and chopping it just so before adding it to the spice mix already simmering in the pot.
Whether you eat it in Ethiopia or here in the D.C. area, soak it the doro wat with some hearty injera bread -- a large, spongy pancake of bread that tastes similar to lightly fermented buckwheat. And here are a couple of our favorite places in D.C to eat doro wat, prepared under far less stressful and antiquated conditions:
Etété
1942 9th Street NW
(202) 232-7600
Dukem
1114-1118 U Street NW
(202) 667-8735
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Let me add my favorite restaurant into the mix:
Addis Ababa
8233 Fenton St.
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-589-1400
Yes, it's a hike up to Silver Spring, but believe me: this place is worth it. The staff are attentive (and beautiful) and the food puts Etete's to shame. Portions are larger, too.
Do I finally smell a new "Eating In" post coming to replace the disturbing lamb and peas that has been up for over a month?
The exodus of good Ethiopian places away from 18th street is alarming...Red Sea and Addis Ababa are sorely missed, especially the basement of the latter (where am I going to watch the World Cup this year?!?). Meskerem is just too much of a theme park for Fodor's-reading Shoreham/Wardman Park/Hilton guests, and Awash is so-so. Wah.
I still hate when I hear people make that tired old joke when you bring up Ethiopian food: "They have food in Ethiopia?"
Nice piece, April.
I still hate when I hear people make that tired old joke when you bring up Ethiopian food: "They have food in Ethiopia?"
Nice piece, April.
Metrocurean, I agree that that is a tired joke, however, as anyone like me who was a child of the 80's can tell you, we spent a lot of time getting the idea pounded into our heads that all Ethiopians were, like, crazy starving. It was thus a bit of a surprise to find out that it has a very rich food culture.
Anyway. It's still a lame joke.
MM, you hit the nail on the head about Meskerem! But you should really take southeast of 18th to U and 11th through 8thish... The new places are more plentiful and better than 18th ever was!
And about the joke, I hear it too, and it is really annoying.
but hooray for having such great Ethiopian food in this city.