Injera: Iron rich staple of the Ethiopian diet

Injera is the Ethiopian bread made from teff. I was curious, so I had to try it! The teff flour is shown on the left. 


To make injera, I mixed water with teff flour and put it in a plastic container, covered the container with a towel and let the mixture ferment overnight. This step can take up to 3 days, but you can tell when it is ready because it has bubbles and a sour aroma. I heated to medium a skillet lined with a small amount of olive oil. I poured a thin layer of batter into the hot skillet and cooked it for only a few minutes. The result is shown below. 

One side is porous as you can see and the other side is smooth. Stew and other foods are put on top of the injera, and the porous bread absorbs the flavors. Ethiopians break off a piece of the injera to use as an eating utensil. They bend it and scoop up their food and stick it in their mouth! 

To be honest, I didn't really like the taste of the injera because it was slightly sour, perhaps because I did not have a wonderful Ethiopian Wat (stew) to pour on top. I will definitely try it again with the Wat!


Also, I ruined a few pieces before I figured out how to cook it properly...so all was not lost today because I really needed to practice before adding Wat. Don't be discouraged if it takes some time to get the knack of cooking injera!


The procedure for making injera, along with some interesting information about Ethiopian culture and food can be found at
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/INJERA-1275373;
http://www.angelfire.com/ak/sellassie/food/injera.html; and
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/recipe-injera.html.

The exploratorium site contains an injera recipe along with scientific explanations for students.

I also made muffins from the teff flour. They turned out really well!! The recipe I used was on the flour package. This muffin recipe and some injera recipes call for a mixture of teff flour and another type of flour. For traditional Ethiopian injera, only teff flour is used. The muffins had teff flour mixed with brown rice flour. 

The muffin recipe can be found at http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes_detail.php?rid=846. 


I used almonds instead of hazelnuts because I didn't have any hazelnuts. The muffins are high in iron and have a hearty, slightly sweet taste. They are easy to prepare