🇪🇹 Ethiopian · Beef & Lamb Dishes
🫀 Ethiopian Beef Tripe Wat
ጨጓ ወጥ — Chegua Wat
Ethiopian Chegua Wat — beef tripe cleaned and slow-cooked in a berbere and kibbeh wat sauce for 2 hours until tender. The tripe wat of Ethiopian celebration cooking — honouring the whole animal in the most complete way.
Tripe wat is the other side of Ethiopian whole-animal cooking — while tendons produce the stickiest sauce, tripe produces the most distinctively textured meat. Properly cleaned and long-cooked, tripe becomes tender, absorbs the berbere sauce, and produces a wat of singular character.
Ingredients
Equipment: Large pot
- 600g beef tripe — thoroughly cleaned
- 2 onions
- 2 tbsp kibbeh
- 3 tbsp berbere
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 1 cup water
- 2 tsp salt
Method
- Clean tripe thoroughly: rub with salt and lemon. Rinse many times.
- Blanch tripe 15 minutes. Drain. Cut into pieces.
- Dry caramelise onions. Add kibbeh and berbere. Toast.
- Add garlic, ginger, and tripe. Add water.
- Simmer covered 90—120 minutes until completely tender.
Chef Tips
- Cleaning tripe thoroughly is the most important step — shortcuts produce an unpleasant flavour.
- Tripe must be genuinely tender — test with a fork.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Insufficient cleaning.
- Under-cooking.
The Science
Tripe is the stomach lining — primarily smooth muscle with a very different protein composition from skeletal muscle. It requires longer cooking than muscle meat to denature its proteins and become tender.
Nutrition (per serving)
Health Benefits
- High protein.
- Very low fat.
- Rich in B vitamins.
Cultural Note
Tripe wat is the dish of those who understand that the honour of an animal lies in using every part of it with skill and care.
Storage & Serving
Storage: Refrigerate 3 days.
Reheating: Fully heated through.
Serve with: Injera (ETH001), With strong chai to balance