Niwa

Niwa is one of the main genres of Otseqon food. Niwa is any thick stew designed to be eaten by scooping it up with flatbread. Niwas are generally based on dehydrated shallots, which are then briefly fried with other aromatics and cooked into a stew with vegetables and/or seafood (shrimp is particularly common) and seasoned with kelp stock and fish sauce. The stew is then reduced until it's very thick (think maybe mashed potatoes or a thick lentil stew). Sweet potato starch is sometimes used as a thickening agent.

The shallots are dehydrated by slowly cooking them in an empty pan. For practical reasons this is usually done ahead of time with a lot of shallots which are then stored for later, but for best results it should be done as part of the preparation of the dish.

Niwas are often spiced with Otseqon N spice powder and cumin.

The word niwa is a verb meaning ‘to reduce; to thicken; to congeal; to focus (one's attention); to develop into more detail (an idea, plan, etc)’. Because Otseqon bare verb roots are unaccusative and habitual, niwa is used as a headless relative clause basically meaning "it gets reduced".