Ethiopian meal

I started this batter for Injera last Sunday and it was finally ready today, so I made a simple meal of injera plus a few sides. I had already soaked, pressure cooked and frozen some brown lentils and potatoes over the weekend, so, that cut down on cooking time. This meal was ready within 35 minutes, quite surprisingly, with multi tasking and parallel processing, of course...

Injera: same as my all-purpose flour injera recipe except, I used half all-purpose flour, half sprouted ragi flour.

Ragi, aka finger millet, is very nutritious and available readily in India, but, I had some difficulty finding it at Indian stores nearby here - I had to keep checking back to see if they got a new fresh shipment - when it ages it feels stale and I don't like it much.

The sprouted ragi flour we had needed to be used up as I had bought it several months ago planning to make ragi kanji and ragi koozh (porridge of sorts) for my baby... but, since she eats what we eat anyway, and I didn't want any koozh or kanji for myself, the ragi flour just sat there on the shelf, aging not-so-gracefully...

I served it with mesir wat, and cabbage-potato alicha which are essentially the same recipe as I had posted before.

However, the y'abesha gomen is not quite the usual gomen. I had to use up the chard from our garden, so, the recipe is the same as before, just used chards instead of collard greens.

The selatta is just romaine hearts dressed with a simple vinaigrette of lemon juice and olive oil, some salt and pepper.

Also, served yekik alicha, bamya alicha, yeqey sir qiqqil - Ethiopian beet salad, Ayib Bemit'Mit'a - cottage cheese with hot chilies. So, it's a pretty loaded injera...

Injera

Every once in a while, I love to cook a simple Ethiopian meal of Injera and a few sides. Last Friday was one such day where we had injera, cabbage and potato alicha plus mesir wat, y'abesha gomen, selatta and a chutney to boot!

Usually I like to make Injera with Tef^† flour, but, all-purpose flour serves as a good substitute. Here's a recipe for Injera with all-purpose flour.
^† A mix of teff and all-purpose flour works better than pure teff flour in my experience.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups lukewarm water
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp baking powder
salt to taste
2 Tbsp canola oil


Preparation

1. add the yeast to the flour and slowly add the water and stir it well to form a thin batter; cover and let it sit in a warm place for 3 days; stir the batter once a day
2. when ready to make the injera, add the baking powder and salt to taste, stir well
   
3. heat a large non-stick pan/griddle, brush it with some canola oil, set heat at medium-high
   
4. take about 1/2 cup of batter and pour it on the pan and swoosh it around to spread the batter into a thin layer on the pan (sort of like making crepe)
5. bubbles/holes will form on the surface as the batter cooks and gets dry; usually, injera is cooked only on one side, so not necessary to flip it; oil the pan as needed to make sure injera comes off the pan without struggle
   
6. remove from pan; layer a few injera at the bottom of the serving platter, overlapping each other; then, roll up the rest of the injera as they come out of the pan and arrange them on the serving platter; the quantity here makes about a dozen 8" injeras which seems to be plenty for two
   
7. sides are usually served on the bed of injera, but, i enjoy holding a rolled up injera in one hand and taking a piece and dipping it in my plate of sides with the other:-)