Zalabya, the Middle Eastern bread with black cumin seeds

Once you’ve tasted bread baked with spicy black cumin seeds, you’ll reach for more…and more.

Black cumin is often added to breads and crackers in the Middle East, as we noted in our post about black cumin seed. We suggest scattering some of those spicy black seeds over the dough in our recipe for za’atar topped pita, but here is another Middle Eastern favorite bread that has black cumin in the dough.

Zalabya bread recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup black cumin seeds
• 1 cup olive oil for the dough
• 1 tablespoon granulated yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water for the yeast
• Salt to taste
• Olive oil for frying

Method:

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water
2. Combine flour, sesame and black cumin seeds, olive oil, salt and water in a bowl. Mix well. Add more water by tablespoons if needed to make a pliable dough.
3. Add the dissolved yeast to the batter. Mix well . Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for  30 minutes, or until double its original size.
4. Take pieces about the size of a large egg out of the dough.
5. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and heat it over a medium flame. Fry the dough, pushing it into a circle with the spatula. When the zalabya is golden-brown on the underside, turn it over and fry till all is the same golden-brown color.
6. Add more olive oil as needed. Serve the zalabya hot.

Enjoy!

More Middle-Eastern Recipes from Green Prophet:

• Lemon-Scented Vegetarian Couscous
• Authentic Eqyptian Mulukhiya Soup
• Malabi, Middle Eastern Milk Pudding

Photo of pita sandwich by norwichnuts via Flickr.

Author: Miriam Kresh

Miriam Kresh is an American ex-pat living in Israel. Her love of Middle Eastern food evolved from close friendships with enthusiastic Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish home cooks. She owns too many cookbooks and is always planning the next meal. Miriam can be reached at miriam (at) greenprophet (dot) com.

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