Trib Food Section Strikes Out Again - Ethiopian Chicken Wrap

Well, actually, the filling was quite tasty: Shredded sauteed chicken breasts that had been rubbed with berbere, and onions cooked in the same pan to pick up the chicken and spice flavors (I liked a little homegrown tomato thrown in too).

But their injera (spongy ethiopian flatbread) was a disaster:
They specified that self-rising flour should be first toasted in a pan (wouldn't that kill the efficacy of the baking powder), and yeast added.

The crepes wouldn't spread in the pan, they seized, and when cooked through still had the texture of raw, mealy dough with a nice toasty roux flavor. They wouldn't roll, they crumbled.

Other faults on the recipe included mixing up about 4Tbs of berbere, then just saying, "Rub the chicken breasts with the berbere" -- which could kill if used in that quantity (I didn't); and not specifying the size/weight of the chicken breasts to use.

I still liked the chicken, but the meal came out as a disaster.

It's surprising that the recipe would come out that badly, since I believe the Trib kitchen tests all of its recipes, one of the few papers left in the country to do so. But I also wouldn't think that recipe would end up tasting much like injera, which is typically a sourdough. You could probably wind up with something close using a buttermilk pancake mix.

Here's a recipe from Ras Dashen restaurant. I haven't made it myself, so I can't vouch for how it comes out in a home kitchen.

Injera
Ethiopian sour-dough crepe-like flatbread
Chef Zenesh Beyene
Ras Dashen, Edgewater

Injera is best if served several hours after cooking.

4 cups lukewarm water
1 cup teff flour (available at African markets,

including Abyssinia Market, 5842 N. Broadway St.,
Chicago, 773/271-7133)
2 cups self-rising flour

In a large bowl mix 1 1/2 cups of water with the teff flour. In a blender, mix the self-rising flour with 2 1/2 cups water, and pour the mixture into a second bowl.

Cover both bowls and leave them for two to three days days, until fermentation begins and the water has risen to the top of each mixture. Carefully pour off the water that covers both mixtures.

Combine both mixtures in one bowl, cover and let the mixture (buho) sit for two hours until it rises.

In a larger bowl or blender, thin the buho until it attains the consistency of a pancake batter and seems ready to be poured easily onto a skillet.

Heat a large skillet, pour the buho evenly to form a thin layer. Cook, covered, for 30 seconds or so, until a spongy, crepe-like bread is formed.

Stack each round upon the others and allow to cool.

I've got a sourdough starter in my fridge, I wonder if I could use that to jumpstart the injera batter, rather than trust in local flora blooming and not rotting?

Ras dashen is terrific. We ate there on Mrs. F's birthday this last spring.

Personally, I'm betting our batter had problems because (a) we probably didn't have enough water in the batter, and (b) we 'built' our own self-rising flour from AP+salt+baking powder, and the flour-toasting process that the Trib recipe used may have deactivated the baking powder, and caused the flour to not really make a batter. It certainly wasn't sour in the least.

When Ethiopian first hit the Chicago area years ago, I seem to remember home injera recipes that included soda water. None of the versions I've seen on the net include that now.

JoelF wrote:Ras dashen is terrific.

Yes, it is. Personally, I would just go there and eat the injera. Also, the wonderful yebeg tibs lamb dish. I forgot to include the address:

Ras Dashen Ethiopian Restaurant
5846 N. Broadway St.
Chicago
773/506-9601
http://www.rasdashenchicago.com

Resurrecting an old thread to ask a long shot question:

Does anyone know if any of the Ethiopian places in Chicago serve injera made without any wheat flour (i.e. all teff)? I have a friend who can't eat gluten but would love to find a way to eat Ethiopian food. I called Ras Dashen (my favorite) and confirmed that they do use half teff and half wheat flour. Any help would be much appreciated.

Kristen

I have eaten wheatless bread twice at Ras Dashen: once for a Passover-inspired dinner and once in the company of someone with Coeliac disease.

Both times they made a replacement pancake entirely out of chickpeas. Injera, it was not, butit was still plenty good. As you might expect, however, it was more filling than the injera.

This is a call-ahead kind of request, but they are happy to oblige if given the time.