From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Thu Jun 18 2009 - 13:40:03 EDT
Back to my culinary roots
Hannah Pool was born in Eritrea but adopted and brought up in England.
Time, she felt, to learn how to cook injera - the staple food of her
homeland
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
As cuisines go, Eritrean and Ethiopian food is still pretty rare in this
country. There are about eight Eritrean and 20 Ethiopian restaurants in
London, and only four outside the capital (in Leeds, Glasgow,
Birmingham, and a cafe in Reading, all of which are Ethiopian).
Although the two countries were at war for over 30 years, and have now
come to an uneasy truce, when it comes to food there are only slight
differences. "The main difference is that Eritreans use more tomatoes,
which may be the Italian influence [Eritrea was an Italian colony],"
says Daniel Abby, manager of Mosob, a popular Eritrean restaurant in
west London. "Also, Ethiopians tend to use ghee (clarified butter), but
Eritreans don't," he says.
For both Eritreans and Ethiopians, the staple food is injera, a large
round, flat pancake-like bread, made with a high fibre grain known as
teff (or taf), which is grown in the highlands of both countries. The
bread has a sour, yeasty taste, and a soft, spongy feel, which helps it
soak up the juices of the rest of the food. Injera is used both as a
food and a utensil. Stews such as doro wat (a chicken stew with
hardboiled eggs) or zigni (a spicy lamb stew) are spooned on top of the
injera (which lies on a large metal tin tray) and then eaten communally,
scooped up with smaller pieces of injera.
Although I was born in Eritrea, I was adopted as a baby and grew up in
Manchester so I did not grow up eating this food. In fact, it wasn't
until I came to London in my 20s that I went to my first Eritrean
restaurant. Every year, my friend Winta (who for a long time was my only
Eritrean friend) would celebrate her birthday at Adulis in south London,
which opened in 1996 and is one of the oldest Eritrean restaurants in
the capital. I always had mixed feelings about this annual outing. I
loved the food, and the fact that for once I looked like most of the
people in the restaurant, but I was also embarrassed by how little I
knew about my culture, and by my inability to speak Tigriniya. How times
change. Five years ago I went back to Eritrea to meet my birth family.
Ever since then, I have wanted to become more Eritrean: I've been
learning Tigriniya, and wherever I go, I always look out for Eritrean or
Ethiopian restaurants - I've eaten injera in places as far afield as
Rotterdam and LA. My next obvious step is learning how to cook Eritrean
food.
This is where Kaleab Hiskyas, the manager and chef at Zigni House
restaurant in London's Islington comes in. Hiskyas (standing in for his
mum, who is head chef - she is visiting family in Ethiopia) is teaching
me how to make injera.
If I was having this lesson in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, it would
be much simpler. The main ingredient for injera is teff, the other
ingredient is usually just water. But because of the difference in
climate between the UK and east Africa, and because teff is very hard to
find outside of Eritrea and Ethiopia, most people in the west make
injera with a combination of teff, rice flour, cornflour and plain
flour.
"We mix it with other ingredients because otherwise it doesn't ferment,
so you don't get the same texture or taste as you do back home," says
Hiskyas.
Today, we are using a mixture of three portions of rice flour, to one
plain flour and half a portion of teff: "That will give quite a nice,
light texture to the injera," says Hiskyas.
Online recipes for smaller portions of injera vary: some use cornflour
to give the bread a yellow colour, others prefer their injera darker
(using wholemeal flour), some suggest adding a teaspoon of yeast to make
it ferment, while others consider this sacrilege. Basically, it's a case
of trial and error. When you've settled on a mixture, tip your dry
ingredients, in no particular order, into a large container and stir in
water until the consistency is little thicker than pancake batter.
At this stage you would usually add a jug of starter culture.
Traditionally this is a small amount of leftover mixture from the last
batch you've made, and it helps the injera ferment to rise, and gives it
a sour, slightly alcoholic taste. "If you're making it back home you go
to a neighbour or friend and they give you a jug of the mixture. Then
you pour that into your fresh batch," says Hiskyas. Whenever you make a
fresh batch, you always save some for the next time. Assuming this is
your very first batch, and that you don't have anyone who can give you
any, try the aforementioned sacrilegious teaspoon of yeast. Leave the
whole lot somewhere cool for three to five days to ferment. As we don't
have three to five days to wait, Hiskyas brings out a batch he prepared
earlier.
Next it's time to turn on the mogogo - the name given to an injera oven.
A flat, round, open clay oven, it looks a bit like a flattened wok, with
a lid. Let's face it, this is unlikely to be something you'll have at
home. A large frying pan with a lid (on a low heat) or a crepe machine
will work, but again, it'll be a case of trial and error (the mogogo
partially steams the injera rather than frying it). Hiskyas shows me how
to pour the mixture on to the oven in one smooth movement, before
covering with the lid for about 30 seconds. When he lifts the lid, he
has the perfect injera, with plenty of "eyes" (small fermentation
holes). I give it a go, but my injera comes out an uneven mess. Three
attempts later and my injera does at least resemble a circle, and to my
delight it tastes lovely. Then I realise I am eating one from the batch
Hisykas made earlier. Oh well, at least I know how to order it in
Tigriniya now.
guardian.co.uk C Guardian News and Media 2009
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