No, it wasn’t a real match, but it was close… It was me fighting cooking injera again.
I prepared the batter about 5 days ago, and yesterday I tried to cook some injera for lunch with really bad results. Everything was wrong: wrong pan, wrong heat, wrong fermentation… Even though I’m used to not having great expectations from cooking, still I felt defeated… After trying for a while I almost ran out of batter so I decided to quit and left a bit of it as a starter for next time.
I added more flour to the remaining batter, mixed it, covered it with a cloth and left it on the kitchen counter.
What was I doing wrong? I started to look on the internet to see if I could find a clue of what went wrong. Then I found this blog that gave me some tips on how to get better results with the injera cooking.
So, last night, after everybody was in bed, I went to the kitchen, checked on the batter and decided to give it another try… And guess what? Perfect injera from the first try!! Now, I think I’ve got it, I found out exactly the mix, the timing, the heating, the fermentation, the pan. Victory! 
And I also made the stews. I cooked lamb, lentils stew, and split peas stew and ended with enough leftovers for another meal.

The mix I used for the injera is exactly the same one as before since the first time I’ve got relatively good results:
2 cups wheat flour (bread flour is better than all-purpose flour)
2 cups teff flour
5 cups warm water
(You can make the injera with only teff flour but it will take longer to ferment and you’ll probably need some yeast.)

The secret of the injera lies in the other things that come into play:

1. The fermentation. I think where I live and the conditions in my kitchen, 5 days is too much and the batter gets too sour, maybe 3 or 4 days is enough. You need to smell the batter every day and watch the bubbles forming and maybe try to cook a crepe to see if it’s ready, at least until you learn to “read” the batter. Mix the batter vigorously at least twice a day.
   The less fermentation, the less sour the injera will result. Always set aside a portion of the already fermented batter to use as a starter for the next batch. This will decrease the time for the next one to be ready to cook. Sometimes when you use a starter, you can cook the new batch the same day, or the day after since the fermentation process has already been started. If you are not planning to cook injera right away, put the mix into the refrigerator to slow down the fermentation process since the batter can also get spoiled after a while and you will end up throwing everything down the drain and have to start from the scratch.
2. The pan. The best one, is one with some kind of anti-adherent coating, Teflon works ok. You can use other surfaces, but the injera will stick and probably break apart when you try to remove it from the pan.
3. The heat. I have an electric smooth-top range for which the heat has to be around low-medium. I set it at number 4 1/2 in a 1-10 scale. And the coil size has to be just the size of the bottom of the pan.
4. The time and the cooking. Mix the batter in the bowl each time you grab a bit to make the crepe and pour with a cup in a circular motion to cover all the surface of the pan. Don’t make the crepe too thin or too thick. Cook without oil, the water in the batter is enough to cook the injera.  Just heat the surface and once you pour the batter inside, cover immediately with a glass lid so you can watch while it’s cooking and take it away from the heat just at the right time. It takes several minutes to cook the batter, you need to see a lot of bubbles, if you don’t then something is not right. The injera is ready when the color of the batter has changed all over the crepe. But don’t hurry. Let the injera stand on the pan away from the heat to dry a little. This is something you need to experiment with, but I let it stand for about a minute before removing it from the pan. This way the crepe has time to finish cooking and it will not stick to the pan. This step is the one that helped me the most to cook the crepe right. Then, run a plastic spatula all around the border and the crepe usually comes out easily.
   The size of the pan doesn’t matter. For now I found it easier to handle a smaller pan, but I guess that with time I will learn to manage bigger crepes…
   Anyway, the quality of the injera doesn’t depend on the size of the pan.

To summarize: 3 days of fermentation, 1 with a starter. No oil. Low to medium heat. Anti-adherent pan with glass lid. Let the injera “dry” before removing from the pan.

But the battle isn’t over yet! I ordered a 12 inch electric crepe maker that I will try as soon as I get it, and I also want to try other brands of teff flour. I’m using Bob’s Red Mill whole grain teff flour that makes a darker injera, but I would like to try the variety called ivory teff to see how the injera turns out.

AliciA