Yemeni Kubaneh

A little over a week ago, I had some time on my hands, so I figured I'd look up a new bread.  I wanted something reasonably simple, but exotic, so I started my recipe search in Africa, then moved to Israel.

While perusing kosher recipes, I found this recipe for an overnight Yemenite bread.  It isn't African, and it isn't Israeli, per se, but it seemed reasonably simple, and the idea behind it was definitely exotic!

A bread which cooks at a low temperature overnight?

I had heard of cookies which sat in a cooling oven overnight to finish, and of course, my yogurt cultures overnight in a cold oven with the light on, but a bread?  Breads are supposed to be baked at high temperature, aren't they?  Hasn't that been the challenge of all bakers?

This I had to see!

Unfortunately, with one thing or another, and recognizing I needed about 5 hours between first mixing and bedtime, I wasn't able to try it out until last Saturday night.

The waiting was killing me . . .

Interestingly enough, the choice to make it Saturday night was rather appropriate.  Apparently this bread is made by many Jewish people on Friday evening, to be ready for their Sabbath on Saturday.  In some strict households, no cooking is done on the Sabbath, in keeping with the idea that no fire should be kindled on the Sabbath.  So to have a bread which is started before Sabbath starts and just cooked overnight (no fire being kindled, because it was already on), would be just the thing.  We are not Jewish, and we do not have the same kind of restrictions, but by cooking it Saturday night, it was ready for our Sabbath on Sunday morning.



At last!!

 Ingredients:

2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm water (for the yeast)
3 Tablespoons sugar (to add while the yeast is dissolving)

3 Tablespoons honey or additional sugar (I used honey)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 to 6 ounces margarine or butter (That's 8 to 12 Tablespoons of margarine or butter.  I used 12 Tablespoons of butter.  This will be divided.)
3/4 cup very hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour (or more, as needed)
8 eggs in their shells (optional)

The original recipe includes directions for mixing by hand, very similar to what I've written here.

I mixed the ingredients as I normally would in my stand mixer.  First, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water with the 3 Tablespoons of sugar.  In the stand mixer bowl, combine the remaining sugar, honey, salt, half the butter, and the 3/4 cup very hot water.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the butter has mostly melted.  Check the temperature to make sure it's not too hot, then add the yeast mixture.  (If you are concerned it might be too hot, add the first cup of flour, mix, then add the yeast mixture.)  Add the flour, cup by cup, and mix with the bread hook attachment.  Add more flour as necessary to get the dough to the stage where it will start to clean up the sides of the bowl, then gently tap bits of flour  to prevent the dough from sticking again while the bread hook kneads the dough for about 5 minutes.

After the dough has been kneaded, add a little oil, allow the hook to carry the dough around the bowl once or twice, then turn off the mixer.  Remove the bread hook, twirl the dough around to grease the bowl with the oil, and flip the dough upside down, so the oiled side is up.  Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow to rise for an hour or until nearly doubled in volume.

Leave the other half of the butter on the counter to soften it.  You'll want it to be very soft.

Because this recipe did not include eggs, I didn't think the rising time would be terribly long.  But I had forgotten that recipes with a lot of butter also take a long time to rise.  It took the entire hour mentioned in the recipe, and that was with the boost of the pellet stove!

After the first rise, punch down the dough and allow it to rise again for about another hour.  (Alternately, you can refrigerate it for 3 to 4 hours.)  Grease the pan or dish you intend to use and preheat the oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.  The recipe called for a 2-quart dish, about 8x8x2, which I happened to have.

Whenever a recipe tells me to roll out or shape bread dough, it has always told me to do so on a lightly floured surface.  But this recipe was different.  Instead of flour, this recipe calls for oiling the prep surface and rolling pin.  (It was at this time I decided I'd better put on an apron.  Flour on my clothes comes out easily; a drop of oil can ruin them forever.)  I kept a little oil in a dish available to be able to refresh the prep surface if needed.



Shiny!

 Divide the dough into 8 portions.  Roll a portion into a rectangular shape.  (I realize nobody would learn the proper definiton of a rectangle by this particular piece of rolled dough, but you get the idea.)

Once the dough is rolled out, spread about 2 teaspoons of butter on to the surface, then roll it like a jelly roll.

Flatten the jelly roll using the knuckles of your hand, then spread about a teaspoon of butter on top.

Roll the flattened and buttered dough into spiral, like a cinnamon roll.

Place the rolled dough, spiral side up, in your greased pan or dish.  Repeat for the other seven portions of dough.

The recipe stated here, if you want to include eggs, it is time to wash the eggs and place them in the dish, but there was no indication exactly where they should be placed.  I realized there was absolutely no way I could fit eggs on top of this dough and still put a lid on the dish, and there was no room to place the eggs beside the dough, so I decided to forego the eggs this time.  (Subsequent research shows people do actually put the eggs on top of the dough, sort of sqeezed between the actual rolls.  However, I'm not sure all people add the eggs at this point in the recipe process.)

Create a false lid for the bread, using either greased paper or aluminum foil.  I used parchment paper, oiled and placed on top of the bread.

Because the recipe called for a tight-fitting lid, my lid was not terribly tight-fitting, I improvised, adding a layer of aluminum foil to help seal the cracks.

And into the oven it went!

After 3 hours, with the surface of the bread a golden brown, it was time to flip it.  If you have put eggs in with the bread, remove the eggs and replace them after the bread has been flipped.  (I wonder if some people just put the eggs in at this stage in the game.)

When I pulled the dish out of the oven, I immediately noticed a potential problem:  the bread looked as if it had been constricted in its rising by the lid of the dish.  In the center, where the lid was more raised, the bread had also raised high, while on the edges, it looked a little smushed.  I decided I probably should have used my deeper dish, even without cooking the eggs.

Placing one plate over the dish, I inverted the dish, allowing the bread to fall upside down on the plate.  I placed another plate on top of the upside-down bread, then flipped that. so the bread was right-side-up on the new plate.  Then I placed the dish upside down on the bread, and flipped the entire thing, so the bread was now upside-down in the original dish.

This presented a new problem.  Because the center of the bread had risen higher than the outside, the bread was now higher overall, preventing the lid from being able to come anywhere close to the dish.  Hmmmm.  I decided to do what I usually did when faced with a problem of an ill-fitting lid:  use aluminum foil.  I pulled out a large piece of aluminum foil and proceeded to wrap the entire dish, in the fashion of a baked potato . . . Well, at least, that was my impression.  I knew there was no other way I could make a "tight-fitting" lid with aluminum foil on this dish, because the dish had no rims.

Turn the oven down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, place the pan or dish inside, and go to bed.  I am not sure exactly how long this bread should really be in the oven overnight, as the recipe did not specify.  Mine ended up cooking at this low temperature for about 8 hours.

I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw when I pulled the dish out of the oven at 7:30 am.

It didn't surprise me too terribly much that it was brown on the surface.  What did surprise me was the fact the brown color was carried completely throughout the bread.

What kind of a chemical reaction had taken place here?!  I have no idea.  Is this what happens when butter is cooked a long time?  Would it have happened this way if I had used margarine?  Perhaps it is because I added honey when the option was available, instead of more sugar.  Perhaps there is a bit of carmelization going on.  Perhaps . . . I really don't know.



The original top is on the top again!


The basic texture when the bread was torn somewhat resembled a croissant, but much more moist and less flaky.  (Hardly surprising, with all that butter cooking in an enclosed space.)  The flavor was also very, very buttery, as I expected.

I am not used to eating foods with such a high butter content, so it felt very rich to me--almost too rich.  Then I reread the recipe and noticed the bread should be served with sugar or peppery tomato sauce.  Since the bread comes from the Middle East, I figured honey might be a good alternative, as well.  After some experimentation, I found that either sugar sprinkled on the bread or honey spread on the bread made all the difference.  The former added a delightful touch of sweetness, while the latter lent a taste reminiscent of honey butter.

The Junior Taste Tester took a couple of bites of the bread and decided she didn't like it.  The Senior Master Kitchen Helper ate some, decided she liked it, ate some more, and decided she didn't like it.  The Master Kitchen Helper, who is my "foodie", was the only daughter who ended up liking it enough to eat more later on, but most of the kids decided it was just too buttery.

My husband's jaw dropped when I told him this.  "Too buttery?" he exclaimed.  "There is no such thing!"

He loved the bread.  He loved the texture and the taste, especially with honey.  In his opinion, it improved throughout the day, despite the instruction to serve the bread warm, fresh from the oven.  He thought it was wonderful dipped in his Pero drink, which, he figured, would be something the Middle East people might do with their coffee.

Because of the color, I was convinced I had done something wrong, despite my husband's insistence that it was perfect, so I did some more research.  None of the pictures I found showed a bread which was brown through and through, until I stumbled on this YouTube video . . .  See their Kubaneh?  It is brown all the way through!  (They also have a few eggs.)

I will make it again, but this time, I will use a cast iron Dutch oven placed in the oven, both to allow for space to add the eggs and to more fully accomplish the goal of having a tight-fitting lid during the cooking process.  It is tempting to try to reduce the butter to the lower amount suggested in the recipe, but I think my husband would not appreciate my doing that.

And who knows what will happen next time!  This is, after all, an adventure.

Tasty Flour Tortillas

Living in the desert southwest, everyone assumes you know how to make tortillas.  I was taught by one of my husband's cousins several years ago (a Texas girl, herself), but I didn't actually work out a recipe I liked until recently.

My biggest issue was the consistency.  No matter what I did, if the inside of the tortilla was cooked, the outside of the tortilla always seemed to come out crunchy, which is not what you want if you intend to use the tortillas in soft tacos or any other situation where they need to be folded.  I even tried increasing the amount of shortening in the recipe in the hopes it would soften the dough, but to no avail.  For a while, I completely gave up and refused to make them at all.

Fast forward several years later, when my husband and I discovered a tortilleria in Silver City, New Mexico, with the most heavenly flour tortillas.  We made special efforts to stop by every time we were in the area, and at least two tortillas never made it back home.  (Home?  I'm not sure those two tortillas made it to the next stoplight . . .)

One day, I was speaking with a co-worker about these wonderful tortillas.  "You know why their tortillas are so good?" he asked me.  "It's because they use lard."

Lard?  Well, I knew the Mexican ladies I worked with used a lot of lard, but I personally couldn't stand the idea of stocking the stuff, myself.  Then one day, when I had a daughter shopping for me, a glorious mistake happened.

Instead of buying all-vegetable shortening, which is what I normally pick up, she grabbed regular shortening off the shelf and brought it home.  An idea pinged in my mind.  If the lard was what made those tortillas so wonderful, then maybe using the shortening with both animal and vegetable fats, rather than all-vegetable shortening, would make the difference.

The secret ingredient!!

It did.  It really did!  I couldn't believe how easy it was to have soft, pliable, fluffy tortillas with just this one simple ingredient change.  I think the people in the tortilleria still make them better than I do, but you wouldn't guess it by how quickly they disappear off the table.

Ingredients for about a dozen tortillas:

2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt (Reduce this if you think they come out too salty.)
4 Tablespoons shortening
Hot tap water to make the dough--a little over 2/3 a cup is about right.

Mix the dry ingredients together, then cut in the shortening.

Add hot water and mix the dough with a fork until it gathers and forms a ball around the fork.  If you add a touch too much water, I as I did in the following picture, it isn't the end of the world.  It will just be a little sticky until the flour from your hands or from the rolling process incorporates into it a little.

With lightly floured hands, divide the dough and roll into balls about 2 inches in diameter.  (Smaller if you want smaller tortillas.)  I was told when I first learned that it is better to work quickly, while the dough is still a bit warm from the hot water.  I think she was right; if you wait too long, bits of the dough will dry out and it will be difficult to get a smooth tortilla.

Heat a skillet or griddle on the stove on medium heat.

I tend to use a normal rolling pin to roll out the tortillas, but many people use one looking more like the one on the left, which is made from a piece of sanded dowel.  I haven't practiced with it enough to be able to roll things out at a consistent level.  (By the time I'm done with rolling a tortilla using the dowel, it has wave patterns or something . . .)

It is very easy to get too much flour on tortillas in the rolling process, making them taste more like . . . well, flour.  But if there is not enough flour on the tortillas as they are rolled, they will stick to the board and end up forming very interesting shapes.  I remembered a trick the ladies from showmethecurry.com had used when making parathas--dipping the dough into a bowl (or pie plate) of flour as they went--and so decided to try it out this time.  I found it really did help to keep just the right amount of flour involved in the rolling process.

I probably shouild have slightly flattened the ball before dipping it.

Roll the tortilla, dipping into the flour lightly if necessary, until it is round and very thin.  (I confess not all mine are quite this round . . .)

If you have rolled out a tortilla and your pan is not ready to bake it yet, you can hang it on the side of your bowl or something while you roll out another tortilla--but not too long, or it will dry out.

Place the tortilla on the skillet or griddle (no oil necessary), spinning it around as it cooks if you are worried about it sticking.  (I've never had them stick.)  The surface will get bubbles on it as it cooks.  If a bubble gets too big, lightly press it down with your turner.

You can see toward the top left where I pressed down a large bubble.

After the surface has bubbles and the underside has lightly browned spots, flip the tortilla.

Cook until the next side has lightly browned spots, then remove and keep warm.

Continue with other tortillas until they are all cooked.  If flour starts to accumulate on the skillet or griddle, use a paper towel or kitchen towel to wipe it away.  (Otherwise, it will burn and you'll end up with burned flour on the next tortilla you cook.)


Yummy!  These are good for soft tacos, quesadillas, or just eating with butter.  (Or, as the Kitchen Artiste In Training likes to do, eating with butter and cinnamon-sugar.)

Southwest Salsa

(Yea, yea, I know . . . This isn't a bread.  But I have tortillas coming down the pike, so it is relevant.  Besides, who doesn't like a nice snack of salsa and chips every so often?)

When I first moved here, everyone raved about the salsa made by the ladies at the local grill.  But until I got a job working there, I had no thought of ever making salsa myself.  Then I saw how easy it was . . .

Salsa is most definitely not rocket science; flavors can be added or subtracted depending on taste.  For example, when I first got there, the lady who usually made the salsa put in canned tomatoes (What? Canned tomatoes? Really?), onion, jalapenos, and Mrs. Dash seasoning.  Another lady who sometimes took a turn put in salt instead of Mrs. Dash.  And when a lady who owned a restaurant in Mexico began making the salsa, she completely omitted the onion, using only the tomatoes, jalapenos, and salt.  (Until she persuaded the manager to order cilantro . . .)

Nowadays, I can't eat jalapenos, which is a real shame.  When I worked at the grill, I greatly enjoyed the salsa the other ladies made, even if I used it sparingly, while they ate it with a spoon.  But it was during that time I developed a geographic tongue, and so became very sensitive to anything very spicy or acidic.  (The ladies used to laugh at me eating cottage cheese after whatever delectable spicy dish they had made in an effort to neutralize the effects of the jalapenos.)  I finally came to the disappointing realization there was nothing I could do to help the situation but to avoid the foods which caused me pain, regardless of how delicious they looked and smelled.

So when I set out to make salsa for my family taco night, I changed the ingredients to suit our taste.

Ingredients:

Can of tomatos.  (Doesn't matter if they are chopped or whole.  I use unsalted, because I prefer to control the amount of salt myself.)
Onion (About a half of a large onion.)
Green chili or jalapenos (I used mild green chili--only about 2/3 the can shown.)
Cilantro (I used about a quarter of the cilantro pictured.)
Salt to taste (I used less than a teaspoon here.)

In a blender, toss in the can of tomatoes, including the liquid.  Add onion, green chili, and cilantro, as desired.  Turn it on and blend as much as you want--less for chunkier, more for more uniform.  Add salt to taste.  This made about 2.5 cups of salsa when I did it.

And there you have it!  Fresh salsa, ready to enjoy!  (Pass the chips!)

This will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.  (Possibly longer if you used jalepenos, because of the chemicals involved, but I wouldn't push it past two weeks.)  The flavors will blend over time, so be cautious if you choose to use jalapenos.  What may be tolerable today may turn out very hot in a couple more days.

Alien Bagels!!

I know what you're thinking:  "Alien bagels?  Bagles don't come from outer space!"  Keep reading . . .

When I found my brother-in-law was making bagels a thousand miles away, I got hungry.  I had tried making bagels some eleven years before, but they hadn't turned out to my satisfaction, and they seemed too much work, so I hadn't tried again.  But if my brother-in-law could make them, I figured, then I certainly could!

I found a recipe on-line which seemed to have good reviews and which was pretty simple.  So with renewed hope, I set out to try again.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 package active dry yeast (a little less than a Tablespoon for my yeast)
1 2/3 cups warm water (lukewarm--about 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit)
2 Tablespoons margarine, softened

Have 1 Tablespoon sugar and 2 teaspoons salt ready to add to the water for boiling.

First, mix the dough according to standard methods of mixing yeast doughs.  This recipe is actually sized so a bread machine can mix it for you, if you have one, which I don't, you can skip ahead to after the rising part.  I use my stand mixer usually, so my description follows that process.  If you have a stand mixer and need more details on mixing, you can check here, and if you don't have a stand mixer, try here.
Start by dissolving the yeast in the water with the sugar.  While waiting for the yeast to dissolve, put the salt and a couple cups of flour into the stand mixer bowl.  Mix them a little with the bread hook and add the margarine.  Add the yeast mixture when it is dissolved, and continue mixing in flour until the dough cleans up the side of the bowl.  Allow the bread hook to knead the dough for a few minutes.

Add a little oil to the bowl, turn off the mixer, and remove the bread hook and bowl from the stand mixer.  Take out the bread hook, swirl the dough around in the bowl to spread the oil around, and flip it upside down.

Cover, and allow to rise in a warm place until about doubled in size.



This is a little more than doubled, but I was busy making aloo paratha while it was rising.


Punch down the dough, cover, and let sit for another 15 minutes.  It's a good idea to get your pot or skillet for boiling water started sometime during this time.  Add the 1 Tablespoon sugar and the 2 teaspoons salt to the water.

(Welcome back, bread machine users.  Hope your water is boiling.)

You'll want your oven ready at 375 degrees Fahrenheit when you are finished with the boiling process, so it's a good idea to go ahead and preheat it when you start shaping the dough.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces.  Shape 3 pieces into smooth balls.  (Smooth?  How do I do that?  I'm going to have to do some more research on this.)  Poke a 1-inch hole in each.  (I poked it initially with the end of a wooden spoon, then used my fingers to stretch the hole larger.)

Here they are after stretching.

Drop the bagels into the simmering water and cook on medium low heat for 3 minutes.  Turn the bagels and cook 2 minutes, then turn again and cook for 1 minute more.

Remove the bagels from the water and drain on towels.  Repeat for the rest of the dough.

This was the point at which I dubbed my bagels "alien bagels".  The shape was awful, and the texture looked like something you really didn't want to view or touch right after dinner.  (Who knew half-cooked bagels might look like some sort of odd gelatinous substance?)

I found that 4 bagels fit fine in my pot without crowding, so next time, I'll probably just boil them in groups of 4 and save myself some time.

Place the bagels on a greased baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes.  Remove from the sheets and cool.  If you want, before baking, you can mix 1 egg white and 1 Tablespoon water, brush it on the bagels, and sprinkle on sesame, poppy, or caraway seeds.  I was going for plain this time, so I didn't.

It took a lot longer than 25 minutes for my bagels to develop anything which looked like browning, and they didn't brown as much as I really wanted, so I think next time, I will raise the temperature.

I wasn't impressed with how they looked, and I wasn't impressed with the texture and such when I tested a not-quite-cool one.  But the next morning, when my husband ate one while heading out the door, he came back and commented, "They might be alien bagels, but they sure taste good!"  The texture was much better than it had been the previous evening, so maybe they just needed to sit overnight and completely cool.

All in all, they were a success with the family, especially my husband, who liked the texture better than store-bought bagels.  I am not completely satisfied with the results, so I think I will be tweaking this a little more--doing some research on the proper shaping of bagels and raising the baking temperature, for starters.

Then, perhaps, I will manage to produce something which looks like it belongs on Earth.