Eish Baladi

Dusted with bran rather than flour, and baked hot enough that it puffs into a hollow pocket.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g wholemeal flour
• 200 g strong white flour
• 380 ml warm water
• 7 g fast-action dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 12 g salt
• 60 g coarse wheat bran, for dusting

Method

1. IT IS DUSTED WITH BRAN RATHER THAN FLOUR, and the difference is not cosmetic. The shaped rounds are proved on a thick bed of coarse bran and dusted with more on top. Bran does not hydrate and go sticky the way flour does, so the very wet rounds can be lifted and slid into the oven without tearing -- and in the oven the loose bran scorches slightly and gives the bread its particular nutty smell and freckled surface. Floured rounds glue themselves to the cloth and tear as they are moved, and a torn round will not puff.
2. IT MUST PUFF INTO A HOLLOW POCKET, AND THAT NEEDS A VERY HOT SURFACE. 250°C or hotter, with a heavy tray or stone preheated for half an hour. The water in the dough has to flash into steam faster than it can escape, which lifts the top away from the bottom in about ninety seconds. On a cold tray or in a moderate oven the water leaves gradually and the bread bakes flat and dense -- edible, and not this bread.
3. THE DOUGH IS WET -- ABOUT SIXTY-THREE PER CENT -- AND STAYS THAT WAY. Three hundred and eighty millilitres to six hundred grams of flour. The steam that does the puffing comes from that water, and a stiffer dough simply has less to give. It is slack and tacky to handle and should not be corrected with more flour.
4. IT IS WHOLEMEAL-LED, NOT WHITE. Four hundred grams of wholemeal to two hundred of white. The white is there only to give enough gluten to hold the pocket; the flavour and the colour come from the wholemeal. An all-white version puffs beautifully and tastes of nothing in particular.
5. THE ROUNDS ARE PRESSED OUT BY HAND AND PROVED ONLY BRIEFLY. Flattened with bran-dusted fingertips to about a centimetre, then twenty minutes, no more. Over-proved rounds collapse rather than lift -- the gluten can no longer hold the pressure.
6. THEY ARE STACKED UNDER A CLOTH AS THEY COME OUT. The pocket deflates as it cools, which is expected, and the cloth keeps them pliable so they can be split and filled. On a rack in the air they stiffen within minutes.
7. The flours, yeast, sugar and salt stirred together, then the warm water added to a SLACK, TACKY dough.
8. Kneaded 10 MINUTES with a wet hand. Risen 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES.
9. The oven heated to 250°C with a heavy tray or stone inside for 30 MINUTES.
10. A tray or cloth covered with a THICK BED of coarse BRAN.
11. The dough divided into 8 and each PRESSED OUT with bran-dusted fingertips to about 1 cm and 18 cm across.
12. Laid on the bran and dusted with more BRAN on top. NOT flour.
13. Proved 20 MINUTES ONLY.
14. Slid onto the preheated surface and baked 90 SECONDS to 2 MINUTES, until PUFFED into a hollow dome and lightly freckled.
15. STACKED UNDER A CLOTH as they come out.
16. TESTED: each should have a hollow pocket right through. A flat dense round means the surface was not hot enough, or it over-proved.
17. Best the same day; split and filled while soft.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Egypt · All recipes