Wednesday 5 November 2014

Mmmmm, Ethiopian food!

So, ever since I got back I've wanted to try making Ethiopian food. The staple food is injera, a flat bread made from a grain called teff. Actually at Guassa it was too cold for teff so they grew wheat and made injera from that, but teff is traditional so I wanted to use that. You can't buy teff flour at Safeway so I ordered some online and it came last week.

Anyway, the idea is you have a big round flat bread thing, then you put stew or meat or any good thing on top. You eat it with your hands, tearing off pieces of injera to scoop up the stew. It is actually possible to eat it without making much of a mess.




I mixed the teff flour and water and yeast to make a sourdough starter, which had to be fed more flour and water over the course of a few days.


Then cooked it like pancakes except you don't flip them. The lid lets the top get steamed so they cook all the way through. They are supposed to be bigger, maybe 50 cm diameter, but this was the biggest pan I had.

Some finished injera. The bubble holes are important for the texture. The cracks in the one at the back are not supposed to happen. The batter was too thick at first so the early ones were not as good.

I also made doro wat (Ethiopian spicy chicken stew). It was tasty but not as red in colour as the authentic version. I must not have got the spices right. I couldn't find the proper berbere peppers so I just used chili powder and paprika. All in all it tasted good and brought back happy memories.



Here's the recipes I used. The authors seem to have done better than I did. I will have to try again!
Doro Wat Recipe
Injera Recipe







This was at a fancy restaurant near Addis Ababa. We had shekla tibs (fried beef with hot coals underneath so it stays hot) and you can see the injera rolled up on the side of the plate. Dawit's family and the restaurants I visited in the city serve the injera rolled up on the side. The first course was raw beef but I didn't get a picture. I can't wait to go back!