Tabouna Bread

It is slapped onto the inside wall of the oven and bakes stuck to it, so one face is smooth and the other blistered.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g fine semolina
• 200 g strong white flour
• 380 ml warm water
• 7 g fast-action dried yeast
• 12 g salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• semolina, for dusting

Method

1. IT IS SLAPPED ONTO THE INSIDE WALL OF THE OVEN AND BAKES STUCK TO IT, so one face is smooth and the other blistered. The oven it takes its name from is a terracotta cylinder fired from below, and the shaped round is thrown hand-first against the hot clay wall, where it adheres and bakes vertically until it releases itself. The face against the clay comes out smooth, pale and faintly scorched; the face to the fire blisters and chars in patches. That asymmetry is how the bread is recognised, and it is why it is never turned.
2. AT HOME IT IS A VERY HOT PREHEATED STONE AND THE DOUGH GOES ON ONE SIDE ONLY. 250°C with a stone or heavy tray in for forty minutes, the round laid on and NOT TURNED. The underside takes the smooth scorched face, the top blisters. Turned halfway, both faces end up the same and the bread is an ordinary flatbread.
3. IT IS SEMOLINA-LED, WHICH IS WHY IT IS DENSE AND GRITTY. Four hundred grams of fine semolina to two hundred of flour. The semolina gives the close, slightly sandy crumb and the pale gold colour; an all-wheat version is softer, whiter and lighter, and reads as a different bread.
4. THE DOUGH IS WET AND IS PRESSED OUT BY HAND. Three hundred and eighty millilitres to six hundred grams of flour, and shaped with the fingertips rather than a pin. The dimples the fingers leave are where it blisters.
5. IT IS DUSTED WITH SEMOLINA, NOT FLOUR. Underneath and on top. Semolina does not hydrate and go sticky the way flour does, so the wet round lifts cleanly, and it toasts on the hot stone into part of the crust.
6. IT IS BAKED UNTIL THE BLISTERS DARKEN AND NOT LONGER. Six to eight minutes. The blistered face should have real dark patches on it -- that char is part of the flavour -- but the bread itself stays soft, so it comes out while the smooth face is still pale.
7. IT IS STACKED UNDER A CLOTH. Straight off the stone onto a pile under a towel, so the rounds steam each other and stay pliable.
8. The semolina, flour, yeast and salt stirred together, then the warm water and olive oil added to a WET dough.
9. Kneaded 12 MINUTES and risen 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES.
10. The oven heated to 250°C with a stone or heavy tray inside for 40 MINUTES.
11. The dough divided into 6, each PRESSED OUT BY HAND with dimples to about 1 cm thick and 18 cm across.
12. Dusted with SEMOLINA above and below. Not flour.
13. Rested 20 MINUTES.
14. Laid onto the hot stone and baked 6 to 8 MINUTES. NOT TURNED.
15. STACKED UNDER A CLOTH as they come off.
16. TESTED: one face should be smooth and pale and the other blistered with dark patches. Two identical faces mean it was turned.
17. Best the same day.

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 Tunisia · All recipes