Cookware · Hearths
Dist
A wide, shallow stew pot: wat reduces in a circle while injera waits on the mitad.
The journey
Injera has the mitad. The wat has the dist — a wide aluminum or clay pot whose shallow walls let berbere and niter kibbeh reduce without turning into soup. Ethiopian home kitchens still keep both hearths side by side.
A Dutch oven is taller than this work wants. The dist is a skillet that knows it is a stew pot.
In the kitchen
Bloom the berbere in niter kibbeh first. Add onions until they almost disappear. The sauce should coat a spoon, not fill a bowl.
The Ethiopian volume's wats assume this wide reduction. A heavy skillet with a lid is the weekday stand-in.