Wat the heck?

types of teff

Apparently there are different varieties of teff -- which might explain the color difference in my injera.  Ivory teff flour, which is available at the Teff Company, is probably what I'll try next -- there are also red, white, and brown teff flours.  So it's not the fact that the flour I used was whole grain (they're all whole grain, apparently), it's that I used brown teff instead of a lighter colored variety.  So, in a couple of weeks, I'll try the same recipe with the ivory teff in my quest to emulate restaurant injera. 

It's also possible that restaurants use another kind of flour, such as wheat or barley flour, in their injera, in addition to teff.  Right now I'm going to stick with 100% teff and see how it goes.

Injera 1.0, day 3

Well, this morning I checked on my science experiment, after it had been fermenting for about 48 hours, and it definitely smelled like a brewery.  Because injera can be saved for a couple of days in the refrigerator, I thought I'd cook the injera today, and doro wat (chicken stew), minchet abish (spiced ground beef stew), and zelbo gomen (usually made with kale, but I'll use spinach) for dinner tomorrow.

Here's what greeted me when I uncovered the bowl:

It looked awful, but there was watery liquid on top, as there was supposed to be.  The recipe says to "carefully discard" the water, but doesn't say how to discard it.  I decided to skim off the water using a large ladle.

I couldn't skim every drop, but I was able to get a little over a cup and a half of water.  The dough underneath was fairly easy to avoid, so it wasn't that difficult to do.  Here's the dough after skimming (and I used a rubber scraper to clean the residue off the sides of the bowl):

The next step was to boil 2 cups of water:

Then I turned the flame off and added 1 cup of the injera dough:

The recipe says to stir constantly over heat until it gets thick.
 
I expected maybe 5 minutes of stirring, but the mixture thickened almost immediately, to the consistency of pie filling.  I turned the flame off and stirred it for 45-60 seconds.

Then I whisked it for good measure, to make sure it was smooth:

I covered the pan loosely, and let it cool for about an hour.  Then it was time to add it to the injera dough in the bowl:

I whisked it in -- the recipe calls for "more water" but doesn't specify how much more.  So I went with the strategy of adding enough to make the consistency similar to thin pancake batter. I ended up adding about a third of a cup of water.  Here's the finished injera dough, ready for the final rise:

At this point, I was pretty happy.  It certainly looked a lot more appetizing than the protoplasmic goo I've had on my counter for two days.  All that was left was to let it rise, and once again the recipe didn't give any specifics.  So, I decided an hour sounded like a reasonable amount of time to let it sit:

After an hour, the dough was bubbly and puffy, so I whisked it one last time, and heated an electric griddle (which only heats to 400 degrees F), and a nonstick 12" skillet, thinking I would try them both.  I used the big ladle, which holds about a third of a cup, to pour the dough.

I started with the griddle, pouring in circles from the outside in:

These are flour tortilla sized.  The recipe calls for covering the injera while it cooks for 2-3 minutes, and removing it from the pan when the edges start to rise.  Here's what it looked like before I covered it:

Here's after about 1.5 minutes with the cover on:

And here's the injera right before removing it from the pan to cool:

The finished injera, and the whole lot ready to be refrigerated until tomorrow:

Notes:  The skillet seemed to work better than the griddle -- the injera was getting brown on the bottom when I used the griddle.  The optimum setting on the gas burner was just a smidge above medium, and using a skillet with a clear lid really helped me judge the doneness of the injera without having to uncover the pan.  I found that removing the injera from the pan when the top side was still a little bit tacky worked best, and quickly sliding the spatula under it and flipping it over onto a towel to cool also helped prevent the injera from breaking.  Keeping the spatula clean also helped prevent breaking. After it cooled, it was very much like the injera I've had in restaurants -- spongy, flexible and sour.  The big difference was the color, which was a lot darker than the injera I'm familiar with.  I think it's probably because I used whole grain teff flour -- next time I'll try finding some that's not whole grain. The injera was also somewhat thicker than restaurant injera -- but I assume making the dough thinner will correct that problem.  And now I can do some informed research about various ways to do this. I'm pretty pleased with the results -- pending how it works with the other stuff I'm making tomorrow.

Injera 1.0, day 2, scary

The bowl of teff, yeast, and water has barely moved.  I uncovered it briefly earlier this afternoon, so I could snap a pic.  Behold the scariness:

It still smells basically like yeast.  My finely tuned olfactory receptors aren't detecting any fermentation.  Apparently it bubbled up a lot, as the underside of the plastic wrap and the sides of the bowl were covered with teffy residue.  But when I took the coverings off, it was fairly well-behaved, i.e., not trying to explode out of the bowl, as you can see in the picture.

I refreshed the plastic wrap, covered it with a towel, and it's back in its happy place.  Depending on how fast the fermentation happens (and I'm wondering how much is enough), either tomorrow night or Sunday I'll be preparing an Ethiopian meal -- Doro Wat, and a couple of other things I haven't quite decided on. 

I'll have a backup supply of tortillas or something Just In Case!

Injera 1.0, day 1

Injera is the delicious sour flatbread that is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine.  Unfortunately, it seems to be very hard to make, especially in the traditional manner.  I tried to make it once using a recipe that called for biscuit mix -- um, definitely NOT the way to go.

Today I started the process of making injera according to a recipe in Exotic Ethiopian Cooking by Daniel Jote Mesfin.  That bag of teff flour has been taunting me long enough!

Here's the recipe.

********************

Yet'ef Injera (injera made from t'ef)

UTENSILS: 
large pancake pan or large frying pan
large pot
deep mixing bowl

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 lbs. t'ef flour
6 cups water

2 pkt. yeast

PREPARATION:
Clean t'ef thoroughly by removing all foreign materials.  Grind to a fine powder.  Sift into a deep mixing bowl.  Adding water gradually and rubbing with the fingers to avoid lumps, make the flour into a dough.

In a large pot dissolve yeast in warm water and add the flour mixture and mix.  Leave covered for 2-3 days until fermentation begins and water rises to the top.  Carefully discard the water.  Boil 2 cups of water.  Take 1 cup of the mixture, put in the boiling water (Abseet').  Place on a warm stove and stir continuously until it becomes thick.  Cool and pour back into the original pot.  Add more water, cover and let stand till the mixture rises.

Preheat pancake pan at 420 degrees.  Take 3/4 cup of the mixture and pour into the pan slowly, starting at the edge, going clockwise, in circles and coming to the center.  Cover pan 2-4 minutes.  When ready, the rim of the injera will rise from the pan.  Remove immediately and place on a clean cloth to cool. Injera can be covered and stored in a cool place or refrigerated for about 2-3 days.  Makes 6-8 servings.

********************

As I read through the recipe, something struck me right away.  It calls for 6 cups of water, but you add water to the t'ef, then to the yeast, then boil some water, then add some more water...it's very unclear whether the 6 cups is just the initial water you add to the flour, or if 6 cups is the total water needed for the recipe.  Hmmmm.  But we forge ahead.

Here's what the teff looked like in the bowl:

I decided to started adding water and see how it went.  I ended up adding 5 cups of water:

and stirring until it had the consistency of runny, wet sand.

I saved the last cup of water to warm up (to about 105 degrees) and dissolve the yeast in (2 packages of yeast is about 4.5 teaspoons):

Next I added the yeast mixture to the teff mixture, and stirred it until smooth:

Then it was time to cover the bowl.  I started with a layer of plastic wrap:

Next, I wrapped the bowl in a kitchen towel, and stuck it on the counter:

Hopefully when I check it in the morning it won't have flung itself across the kitchen and will be right where I left it, happily bubbling away. 

I think I'm going to just go by instinct with the water issue.  I think the "dough" is supposed to be the consistency of thin pancake batter when all is said and done -- so I'll try to use that as a benchmark.

More tomorrow...the dough thickens.