Fat Bread

Last year, my home-stay family served me cold khobz shHma, aka fat bread. By "fat," I mean lard, which can be very delicious when cooked right. However, the oily tortillas wrapped around congealed fat were not delicious, and that night, it coated my mouth and throat no matter how many times I brushed my teeth. Since that meal, I tried to avoid khobz shHma.

Have I been missing out...

Last night, my neighbor and I prepared the most delicious fat bread, and it changed my point of view. Here's her "recipe:"

Knead:
-Flour
-Pinch of salt
-Yeast
-Warm water
Cover dough and let it rise. In the meantime,

Saute:
-2 cups finely diced red onions
-1 cup finely diced frozen fat (ideally, saved from the 3id Kbir sheep)
-bushel of finely chopped coriander
-Salt, pepper, ginger, cumin, paprika, and hot pepper flakes to taste
-1 T olive oil

1. Divide dough into ping-pong ball sizes and roll like mochi.
2. With well-oiled hands and surfaces, flatten one ball as thin as possible into a tortilla. The tortilla should be larger than my hand.
3. Put a tablespoon of the cooked fat mixture in the center of the tortilla.
4. Fold the top third of the tortilla over the mixture. Repeat with the bottom third, then the right side and left side. Turn the "burrito" upside-down.
5. Roll out another well-oiled ball into a well-oiled, thin tortilla.
6. Place the first "burrito" in the center of the second tortilla. You should see only one layer of dough above the spoonful of fat.
7. Fold the top third of the tortilla over the other "burrito." Repeat with the bottom third, then right side and left side.
8. With well-oiled hands, pat the tortillas down so they are only about an inch thick.
9. Repeat until you've used up your fat mixture and dough. *We counted out how many balls of dough pairs were rolled, then we divided the fat mixture into equal spoonfuls accordingly.
10. Place oiled "double burritos" on a well-oiled tray and bake on low heat. *We don't use temperature gauges here.

When the bread layers are lightly golden and crisp, turn over each "burrito." Cook until the whole flaky bread is golden brown.

Serve the fat bread hot! Enjoy with a hot glass of sweet mint, flio tea!

Unfortunately, I was too busy eating to take a photo of our fat bread (which I heated up again for breakfast, and again forgot to take a photo of). If you combine the two photos below into one, our fat bread would look like that:


For recipe variations, meat, fish, or any non-watery vegetable can also be added to the fat mixture. Let me know how your fat breads turn out!