Making Injera

Well, we are now the proud owners of an electric injera cooker (the highly technical name...) or "injera metbesha" (literally - injera pan).  The first time Tigist made injera, she used our outside kitchen.  The poor woman was so smoked out since you make a fire under the clay cooking surface in a small outdoor room in order to cook the injera.  The injera was great, but Tigist told us the cooking surface wasn't good (you could see that to look at it), and with wood being expensive, we figured an electric injera cooker was the way to go.

 

So, we purchased the injera metbesha just up the street, and it was one of the things that arrived on a man's head on that strange day a little while back.  Tigist has been making injera ever since, and it is wonderful!  (For those of you who don't know what injera is, it is a large flat pancake-type bread that is eaten in Ethiopia at almost every meal.  It is put on your plate, and "wat" (something like a stew - there are all different kinds) is dished out on top of it.  Then extra injera is ripped into pieces and is used to pick up the wat and is eaten.  In traditional Ethiopian meals, there is no silverware.) 

Injera is made from teff flour, Ethiopian yeast, and water.  There is always a "starter" kept (like with amish friendship bread).  When it's time to make injera, part of the starter is heated and more water is added.  That goes back into the starter, and at some point, more teff is added (but I haven't seen that happen yet).  I also haven't found out what the difference is between "foreign" yeast and "Ethiopian" yeast.  Tigist tells me that "foreign" yeast is for bread, but is not good for injera.  But we couldn't buy Ethiopian yeast in a store.  We had to go get some starter from the neighbor.  That's the most I know about Ethiopian yeast.

Tigist is eager to teach me to cook injera.  She makes it look so easy... a pitcher is filled with something like pancake batter.  You start on the outside of the cooking surface and make a large circle and spiral inward.  You need to move quickly or the injera gets too thick.  I've made 3 pieces of injera, and well, it's not as easy as it looks.  We can always tell which piece Mom made at dinner, because it's twice as thick as the ones Tigist makes.  I'll keep practicing...

On Wednesday, Tigist let the boys try their hand at making injera.  They did well!

 

And Hanna - she just plain LOVES injera, no matter who's made it.  When it's being made, she runs around the house enthusiastically saying, "Injera coming!!!"  When Tigist is getting some ready for a meal, there goes Hanna again, "Injera coming!!!"  And occasionally, she sneaks into the kitchen and steals some from the injera pile.  She just loves it!