By Naz Deravian
With a swift flick of the wrist, Gennet Wondimu, owner of Ye Geny Injera & Mini Market in Inglewood, California, slipped a woven mat, called a sefed, under a freshly prepared injera and transferred it from the hot mitad, or griddle, to a long table to cool. Tiny holes covering the surface of the bread stared back invitingly.
“Aino k’onijo, ‘beautiful eyes,’ that’s what we call the injera eyes,” Wondimu said of the holes. “But sometimes the eyes are flat. That means the injera is no good.” An assertively sour, spongy flatbread, injera is ubiquitous in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisines. Often, the nutrient-rich staple serves as plate and utensil.
A variety of stews (such as alitcha kik, shiro, doro wat) and vegetable-based dishes (like tikel gomen) are eaten directly from the bread instead of a plate or bowl. The eyes soak up the sauces, while injera’s requisite tang balances the rich, bold flavours. The malleable texture of injera makes it easy to tear off a piece with one hand and scoop bites.
Necessity shaped Wondimu’s injera. After her husband’s death, she started a catering and injera business out of her home. Her son’s restrictive diet prompted her to use teff flour, which is traditional to the recipe and happens to be gluten-free, rather than the mix of teff and other grains, such as wheat, barley and buckwheat, that many in the diaspora use.
Soon, demand grew, and, in 2018, she opened Ye Geny, where she sells injera made exclusively from teff flour and prepares it for various Ethiopian restaurants in the Los Angeles area.
Because injera can be challenging to make, the task is sometimes outsourced to people who do it especially well. Growing up, Genet Agonafer, chef and owner of Meals by Genet, a popular Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles, recalled how an “injera gagari,” as these experts are known, would regularly come to her home in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and prepare stacks in advance, stored in a beautiful woven basket called a mesob.
“In Ethiopia, injera is your breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she said. “We eat that every single day around the clock. So you make enough for days.” In 1981, when Agonafer moved from Addis Ababa to the United States, teff was not available.
Accordingly, the Ethiopian diaspora did what diaspora communities do: They adapted. Self-rising flour (a combination of all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt) stepped in as a substitute. But, while many in the diaspora took to this new style, Agonafer said that she never really got used to the texture or taste, far less sour than the original. Now, Wondimu provides the injera for her restaurant.
To prepare injera traditionally, a starter made of teff flour and water ferments naturally for days. Part of the batter, called leet, is then cooked in boiling water until it forms a thick smooth paste called absit, to ensure the injera is spongy and doesn’t crack. The absit is mixed with the remaining batter until smooth and pourable. Getting this consistency right is one of the many variables that can make or break your injera.
For the novice, homemade injera can take a lot of practice and the right environment for proper fermentation. And batter based on teff flour alone can be expensive and tricky to work with. The version here, not traditional like Wondimu’s, and not as sour but streamlined, is a good introduction to working with teff.
For Wondimu, working with teff is second nature. “People know it’s my injera,” she said as she poured the batter on the mitad in one thin spiral. Immediately, tiny holes popped up across the bread.
Like the individual notes of a rousing sonata, a thousand beautiful eyes gazed back in affirmation of a well-made injera. - The New York Times
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