Yet'ef Injera, day #2

I thought I'd post a short update, since I'm sure everyone's at the edge of their seats.  Today is day #2 of the injera batter.  Jessica helpfully commented yesterday that, with a sourdough batter, one should use glass or 100% stainless steel, as the batter can corrode any other vessel.  I had forgotten all about my husband's stainless steel beer-brewing pot (which I had also used for the tej), but as soon as I remembered it, I moved the batter over. 


The batter was looking great yesterday!  It had nearly filled the stew pot I had started with and was frothy and bubbly. Absolutely gorgeous!!

yesterday afternoon, before changing pots

I stirred it yesterday because I couldn't help myself.  I probably shouldn't have, but I was transferring it and disturbing it anyway.  If this is going to be a fail, it will be much more interesting if I keep upping the number of variables so that I can't easily narrow down where things went wrong, right?  

This morning, the stuff looked nasty.  There was a layer of blackish liquid on the top and it looked completely inedible.  It looked so nasty, in fact, that if I hadn't been warned that this would happen, I would have thrown the batter away.  I should have taken a photo, but I guess I assumed it would continue looking that bad and that I'd have time to document it.  Alas, when I went to look again, it was looking a little better.  Still not as nice as it was yesterday, but the sickly black-green layer seemed to be less prominent:

how it's looking Saturday afternoon, after about 30 hours

I wish I remembered where I had read about how awful it would look during the fermentation process, but I can't seem to find the source right this second.  I suspect it was a little odd for my husband to hear me say this morning "it looks nasty....perfect!" 

I bought the steak for the t'ibs today (I'm not sure what it says about me that I have every other ingredient in the house except for the meat), so we're definitely moving forward with Ethiopian night tomorrow!!  I only hope I can pull off the injera!  

For tonight, though, it's homemade pizza with dough made by my husband and pepperoni artfully and thoughtfully arranged by the Ethiopians (at least the pepperoni that didn't make it into their mouths).