Rye Spelt Injera

Over the last few years, I have started incorporating more of buckwheat, rye and spelt flours in my recipes.

Pizza, injera, and even some earthy breads seemed to turn out fine. The trick was to experiment and find the right balance with all purpose flour and gluten when using spelt or rye or buckwheat flours. Many of my breads and naans with spelt and rye flours turned out a disaster - dense and stiff like cardboard.

Spelt especially can be difficult to work with as it doesn't have as much gluten as whole wheat, so, it won't rise as much and tends to stay dense, but tastes pretty good. And precisely for this reason of low gluten it is preferred by many who have gluten-intolerance.

Even now, I can't say I have any sure-fire way of success... am still experimenting and documenting all the successful ones here :)

A while back, Sig sent me some starter which I have been feeding and using in a few other recipes. This injera recipe is one of them. I started the fermentation on a Sunday night and the batter was ready for dinner following Wednesday.

If starter is not handy, I am sure my usual recipe with rapid rise yeast would work just fine.

The only main difference I found between rye-spelt injera and all-purpose flour injera is that I had to make these a little thicker than normal else they fell apart easily. Plus they had a more wholesome earthy flavor than the all-purpose injeras.

This time, I served the injera with some steamed spinach (with spices similar to y'abesah gomen), a mushroom and bell pepper curry, and some kohlrabi dal ... not quite the traditional Ethiopian sides, but, I had them handy and it made a sumptuous weeknight meal.

Ingredients
1 cup yeast starter
1 cup rye flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups water (plus more as needed)
½ cup spelt flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
salt to taste

Preparation

1. Mix the starter, rye, spelt, all purpose flour with the water, stir well, cover and allow to rise in a warm place for about 2-3 days, stirring once each day
2. I usually mix them in a ceramic bowl, heat the oven to about 175°F, turn it off and leave the bowl in there to start the fermenting process
3. When batter is well fermented, it will acquire a pleasant sour odor and be a little gooey with sort of latex paint consistency, and when stirred, gets quite bubbly
4. When ready to make the injeras, add the baking powder, salt, stir well, add water as needed to make a thin crepe-like batter
5. Heat a pan, brush or spray with oil as needed, ladle some batter and swirl it around to form a thin layer; bubbles/holes will form at the top surface and as it gets cooked the batter will set and no longer look wet; can remove from pan at this time - no need to flip and cook the second side