Sep 24,2020
Staple foods vary considerably by country and region, from rice or bread to chapatis, tortillas, or couscous. Ethiopia’s injera is another case in point. Made from a cereal called teff, injera is eaten with an Ethiopian stew called “wot.”
In this installment, Solomon, the owner of Queen Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, who’s from Ethiopia himself, tells us all about injera.
Injera is indispensable to the Ethiopian diet. Served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it’s the Ethiopian national food. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa where injera is the staple of the diet. “Ethiopians don’t feel like they’ve eaten unless they’ve had injera,” says Solomon.
Injera rolls (front) and dabo, a spicy Ethiopian bread made from wheat (rear). While dabo may be eaten for breakfast, injera is the country’s national food. No meal would be complete without it.
Injera is made from teff, a member of the grass family known as the world’s smallest cereal. While used in the form of flour, it’s so small that it’s milled as it is, without separating or removing the germ or bran. In other words, all teff flour is whole-grain. It’s therefore packed with nutrients such as amino acids, protein, iron, calcium, and fiber. Like wheat, it contains carbohydrates, but it has the advantage of containing almost no gluten and being richer in calcium, iron, and magnesium than wheat. For that reason, teff has recently come into the spotlight as a gluten-free superfood. Now it’s started being grown in the United States and Australia as well as Ethiopia.
Another thing that makes teff such a special crop is that it can ferment on its own. “Teff is fermented spontaneously by its own yeasts,” Solomon explains, “just as grapes become wine by being fermented with their own yeasts.” At Queen Sheba, injera is made by fermenting teff for three weeks. But getting it to spontaneously ferment in Japan, which has a very different climate from Ethiopia’s, is no easy task.
Ethiopian restaurant Queen Sheba is adorned with various curios from Ethiopia.
“Some recipes tell you to add ordinary yeast to kick-start the ferment, but that would spoil teff’s unique flavor. So here at Queen Sheba we add nothing. We ferment with just water and teff.”
Another surprising fact: when making new dough, dough from the previous batch is added as a starter.
“You add water to the teff and wait for it to ferment, and at that point a little teff left over from the previous batch is added to the new dough. That way the starter culture is carried over, resulting in a better ferment. It’s not unusual for Ethiopian families to keep using the same starter culture for ten or thirty or fifty years.”
At Queen Sheba, the injera served to patrons is freshly baked each day. We were allowed into the kitchen to see how it’s done.
First, a thin layer of batter is poured in a spiral onto a circular griddle. Then the lid is put on at the right moment, and the dough is steamed. That’s why injera is translated “Ethiopian steamed bread.”
It takes considerable skill to pour the dough in a spiral so the injera is just the right thickness.
“One of the hallmarks of injera is its sour fermented taste, which goes well with Ethiopian wot (stew). Without that taste, you can’t call it injera.” So says Tonozuka-san, who is in charge of preparing the food.
Injera has to ferment properly if it’s to taste good. The starter culture is monitored daily, and adjustments are made as needed.
“The starter culture is a living thing, and it’s important to know how to get on well with it. Fermentation proceeds at a different rate depending on the season. Starter culture is highly active in summer, so we make adjustments like changing the water every day to prevent over-fermenting. In winter, though, the culture becomes sluggish, and fermentation takes longer. So you need to observe carefully every day to make sure things are just right.”
The reason you don’t pour the batter first and then spread it out in a circle, as you do when cooking a crêpe, is to avoid popping injera’s trademark bubbles. It takes repeated practice to master the art of pouring a thin layer of batter in a spiral.
“The presence of bubbles means the injera is properly fermented. The bubbly texture gives it a distinctive feel in the mouth and makes it soak up the wot better. The bubbles are a guarantee of good flavor.”
The presence of fine bubbles is a sign of fermentation. They greatly affect the flavor.
Injera can’t be made ahead of time to eat the next day.
“Injera doesn’t contain a substance like gluten that acts as a bonding agent. It retains its shape because of the way the fibers overlap. It therefore falls apart if you put it in the fridge. It also doesn’t tolerate dryness or dampness well. That’s why it has to be baked every day.”
Many griddles in Ethiopia are larger than that used at Queen Sheba.
There’s a special technique to making and baking the dough. People in Ethiopia therefore have strong opinions about their injera.
“Ethiopians are sticklers when it comes to injera. They get really fussy [laughs]. Every family has their own preferences about how sour it should be and what its texture should be like. And because children don’t like really sour foods, families with kids frequently change the water and make their injera with dough that’s less fermented. Grownups, on the other hand, find injera that’s not sour enough unsatisfying.”
The Traditional Course featuring three varieties of wot (for two people)
A set meal consisting of the injera baked for us earlier and three types of wot was brought to our table. The spread-out injera was attractively topped with Gomen Wot made with spinach and potato, turmeric-flavored Misir made with lentils, and Kei Wot made with beef and red peppers. There was a separate plate with several injera rolls and some slices of the spicy Ethiopian bread dabo.
“In Ethiopia, people sit around the table together and eat wot much as people eat hot pot in Japan. First, you start by eating the injera on the separate plate, then finally you tear off pieces from the injera spread out like a plate until it’s all gone.”
Painting depicting people seated around a circular injera
You unroll the injera and use it to pick up the wot with your fingers, then put it in your mouth.
You sometime come across articles in the Japanese online media about how the sour taste of injera doesn’t suit the Japanese palate. But when you actually try it, it tastes exquisite! The faintly sour fermented flavor goes remarkably well with the slightly spicy stew. Steaming makes the dough soft and spongy, so it nicely soaks up the stew. You can’t stop eating it. Solomon says the sour taste is addictive. I now know exactly what he means.
And that’s the story of my first encounter with injera, the fermented food from the African country of Ethiopia. It’s visually stunning, delicious to eat, and wholesome and rich in nutrition. What’s not to like about it? May many more people get to enjoy it.
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