This September, Elizabeth picked Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos for the Bread Baking Babes to make. Her pick was inspired by Middle Eastern food she enjoyed on a trip to the UK a few years back. Khubz, Khuboos, Khobz al-Sabah (Morning Bread) is a puffed yeasted flat bread eaten across the Levant and Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East.

A lot of people like to refer to the Lebanese Khubz as a Lebanese Pita bread. I can understand why. Khubz, though a puffed up yeasted bread in general, can be slightly different in different countries where it is eaten. There are versions of Khubz that are much like Pita bread. To me, Lebanese Khubz and Pita bread are two very different things. I have some knowledge of Lebanese Khubz, you see. I spent my high school years in Nigeria. We had a local Lebanese bakery that made Khubz or Khuboos as we knew it. We would visit the bakery, once every week or ten days to buy Khubz, warm and fresh out of their ovens.

This Lebanese Khubz was thin, soft, slightly floury, hollow flatbread about 10 or 11-inches in diameter. Pita bread is typically cut into half and eaten stuffed with filling, “pocket” style. Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos is torn into pieces, and wrapped around food to pick it up and eat. It’s typically eaten with stews and curry like dishes which can also be mopped up with flatbread.

The recipe below is adapted from Anissa Helou’s recipe for Khobz-al-Sabah/ Lebanese Morning Bread from her book Savory Baking from the Mediterranean. According to Helou, she learned to make this bread from Jawad Yussef Daher, whose bakery is in Kfar Rumman in south Lebanon. He made Khubz from two different flours and the cornmeal give the bread more texture and make it.

Making Khubz for me was going back in time to when we ate Khubz from the local Lebanese bakery. My memories are of a pale coloured flatbread that was wheat flour. So I made mine without the corn meal.

Helou’s recipe calls for a leavener made the previous evening with a sourdough starter. The Khubz I know is not a sourdough flatbread. I stayed with the spirit of the recipe and so made a leavener using a small pinch of instant yeast instead.

I was watching a video online of a commercial Khubz baker speaking in some version of Arabic (or maybe Farsi). While I don’t understand the language, there was a point where I thought he said Khubz is like the Chappathi.  So Helou’s higher hydration dough didn’t make sense to me. I kneaded my dough to chapathi dough consistency, which is soft and smooth but not too soft. This makes rolling the dough into thin rounds easy. I also chose to bake my Khubz on an iron griddle on the stove top instead of baking it in the oven.

Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos is best eaten fresh and on the same day it is made. You can keep it for the next day. If so store wrapped in cotton towels or foil. Reheat in the oven and serve warm.

What can you serve this flat bread with? Traditionally it is eaten for breakfast with some or all of these – eggs, foul medames, thick, creamy labne and olive oil, cheeses like baladi, halloumi, akkawi, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, or za’atar. You can also serve it for brunch or lunch or dinner with soups, stews or curries.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

The post Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

This October Elle picked a sweet savoury Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread for us Bread Baking Babes to make. As the name tells us, it is a rosemary scented flatbread topped with figs, onions and walnuts. I guess I don’t need to tell you all about how well figs and walnuts go together. Even less that figs and walnuts with caramelised onions on rosemary bread is an absolute winner.

This bread might seem a little like a fig and cheese pizza without the cheese but isnowhere near it. A lot of people tend to liken every flatbread with topping to a pizza. That’s doing them both a huge disfavour! Here, the dough is flavoured and quite different. There’s potato water (water in which potato chunks have been boiled), rosemary steeped olive oil and fresh rosemary in it. You can always use regular water instead of potato water. That works just as well.

The topping is lovely too and uses dried figs instead of fresh ones. This means you don’t have to wait till figs are in season. The figs are soaked in Marsala wine to soften them in the original recipe. I used lightly sweetened apple juice instead. Caramelised onions, walnuts, orange zest, crushed pepper and salt in the topping range zest in the topping makes for a very interesting and delicious bread with sweet and savoury flavours.

The dough is easy enough to make and needs a one hour preferment, the regular two proofs, the second one being just 15 minutes long.  The recipe below makes one large flatbread or multiple smaller ones. This Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread has slightly crisp edges and beautifully soft yet slightly chewy texture.

This month’s bread recipe is adapted from Joanne Weir’s More Cooking in the Wine Country. I changed some parts of it. For one, I personally find the yeast too much in a lot of bread recipes these days. I don’t like the yeasty taste in bread, so prefer to use a little less yeast and allow it to proof a little longer which also improves flavour.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.