So, hands up everyone who has ever heard of teff?

Ok, so I’m waving my arm around madly, but I reckon I’m probably in a minority here.

The thing is that I love Ethiopian food, which largely centres around injera, a pancake/bread that is traditionally made using fermented teff, and this has led me to do a little bit of research.

Umm, teff?

So called because teffa (ጠፋ) means lost in Amharic, and teff happens to be the smallest grain in the world, at about 0.8mm, with about 150 seeds weighing the same as onea kernel of wheat.

Teff is similar to quinoa, but because the grain is smaller it takes a shorter time to cook. Teff is gluten free, and is also super high in fibre, has more calcium than milk, and twice as much iron as wheat or barley.

I’m really not a fan of the term ‘super food’ but if there are such things, then this is surely a strong contender.

It’s a traditional crop in the highlands of Ethiopia, but it’s tricky, labour intensive and time consuming to grow, which means that most Ethiopians can’t afford to make injera from pure teff and end up mixing it with other forms of flour. Despite the fact that Ethiopia is an ancient civilisation, and this is really quite an ancient crop, we in the more affluent ‘first world’, who could all afford it have somehow not managed to hear of teff until very recently.

Nowadays though it is also being grown in Europe, the US, Australia, and South Africa, and whilst not exactly cheap is definitely affordable. It’s not the easiest thing to get your hands on, but you could try your local health food shop, or a quick Google will provide plenty of mail order options.

I can’t really recommend any suppliers in other markets, but in the UK you can get it from Innovative Solutions for a reasonable price.

And what would I do with it?

Apart from the obvious answer of make injera (recipe coming here soon), there are a surprising number of things that you might choose to do with teff. Grains are versatile, and teff is no exception, once ground down into a flour you can use it to make pastries, pancakes, breads and cakes.

You can also sprinkle it onto a bread, as you would poppy seeds or sesame seeds, throw it into a vegetable stir fry, or make a porridge out of it.

I haven’t experimented with nearly enough teff based recipes yet, but I’m planning on trying a lot more in the very near future.