When I was growing up, my mother used to joke that when she met my father she had to learn how to cook Yemenite dishes really fast, because his ex-girlfriend was from Yemen and she had been an excellent chef. Whether this is actually true, or whether, more likely, because Yemenite cuisine is quite prevalent in Israel and thus a natural part of my father's culinary palette, my mother just decided to concoct a story with which to embarrass my father, we'll never know... Either way, I grew up with plenty of Yemenite dishes sprinkled in amongst traditional Mediterranean cuisine. Bread baking for my parents was confined to traditional sabbath challah every Friday evening (a daunting enough, all-day task, indeed) and my mother's famous cornbread, spoon-bread, and biscuits for the rest of the week, so it's only recently in my own home that I've begin to discover the rich tradition of homemade breads of the middle east, including this magical flat-bread from Yemen. The simplest of hearty doughs - just yeast, whole wheat flour, water, and a starter, stirred together, then set aside to ferment into a lightly tangy dough cooked on the stovetop, like a delightful merging of crepes, pancakes, and pita bread. At first it took me a bit to grasp the technique - expecting the batter to spread on it's own like crepes, I watched mystified as it clung together like, well, dough (hello, Astra), and wound up with two far too thick bread-pancakes. On the second attempted I mastered the technique of quickly spreading the dough-batter with the back of a spoon - you want an end result just thick enough to hold together, for the dough-batter is delicate, but thin enough so the flat-bread cooks through almost entirely on one side, with the flip really just to achieve a pleasant outer texture on the second side. My favorite part about these delightful flat-breads is you can make a giant batch of dough and then store it in the fridge for several days, cooking a few flat-breads as you like (for the two of us, I cooked this quantity of dough in two batches) so you can always have fresh, warm yeast bread on hand!
Lachuch - Yemenite Flat-Bread
(Adapted from Maggie Glezer's A Blessing of Bread)
3 cups White Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 rounded T turbinado sugar
3 cups water
~ In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. Gently stir in the water until combined.
~ Cover the bowl, and set aside at room temperature for at least 2 hours, or refrigerate for up to 3 days.
~ When you're ready to bake the flat-breads, heat a large skillet over medium-low heat. Coat the skillet with cooking spray. Gently stir the dough to combine the frothy top and layer of liquid on the bottom, which will have separated during the fermentation process.
~ When your skillet is hot, scoop 1/2 cup batter onto the skillet and quickly spread out the batter with the back of a spoon, getting the batter as thin as possible while keeping the flat-bread intact.
~ Cook until the top of the flat-bread is completely dry, and the bottom is golden brown. Flip and cook just briefly until the other side is golden brown also. Transfer to a plate, and cover with a clean tea-towel to keep warm.
~ Re-coat the skillet with cooking spray, and repeat the process... Once you've used all your batter or cooked as many flat-breads as you'd like and returned your remaining batter to the fridge, serve your flat-breads warm, with a myriad of dips or toppings... our favorite is hummus, of course! :-)
