Barbari Bread

It is glazed with a flour-and-water mixture before baking, which gives it a skin like a pretzel.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 700 g strong white bread flour
• 480 ml water
• 7 g fast-action yeast
• 14 g salt
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon nigella seeds

for the glaze

• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 150 ml water
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. IT IS GLAZED WITH A FLOUR-AND-WATER MIXTURE BEFORE BAKING, WHICH GIVES IT A SKIN LIKE A PRETZEL. Its article names both the step and the effect: before baking it is glazed with a mixture of flour and water, and a notable characteristic of the bread is a top skin similar to a pretzel's or a lye roll's, from the Maillard reaction during baking. Whisk a tablespoon of flour into a hundred and fifty millilitres of water, bring it to a simmer for a minute until it thickens slightly, cool it, and brush it generously over the shaped loaf. A pinch of bicarbonate in the glaze pushes it further the same way. Baked without it, the bread is good and the surface is matt and ordinary -- the glossy, deep brown, faintly chewy skin is entirely the glaze's doing.
2. IT IS ONE OF THE THICKEST FLATBREADS, AND THAT IS NOT A CONTRADICTION. Its article says so. Two to three centimetres of risen dough, not the few millimetres of the thin breads on this site.
3. IT IS VERY LONG AND THAT DICTATES THE TRAY. Its article gives 70 to 80 centimetres long by 25 to 30 wide. Most domestic ovens will not take that, so divide the dough and make two loaves of forty centimetres rather than shortening and thickening one.
4. THE DOUGH IS MODERATELY WET AND WELL KNEADED. Around 68 per cent hydration: wet enough to be open inside, firm enough to hold a shape without a tin. Ten minutes of kneading, then an hour and a half until doubled.
5. IT IS STRETCHED BY HAND ON THE TRAY, NOT ROLLED. Pull and press the risen dough out to length on an oiled or lined tray. A pin would knock the gas out of a bread whose thickness is the point.
6. THE SEEDS GO ON AFTER THE GLAZE SO THEY STICK. Sesame and nigella scattered over the wet glaze -- its article names sesame or black caraway as the usual toppings.
7. IT IS BAKED AS HOT AS THE OVEN GOES, WITH STEAM. 250C, with a tray of boiling water on the oven floor for the first five minutes, then twelve to fifteen minutes more until deep brown.
8. IT IS A BREAKFAST BREAD AND IT IS EATEN WITH CHEESE. Its article records it served in many restaurants with Lighvan Cheese, as on its own page, and says it is the most common style baked in the country.

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 Iran · All recipes