Mufleta - Post Passover Fried Bread

Before going into the bread itself (which is simple enough), here is some background:

About a week ago the Jews had their Passover holiday. This holiday lasts for a week during which the religious and traditional Jews are not allowed to eat any bread that its dough was allowed to rise.

This is due to the Bible story of the Hebrew slaves running away from Egypt (the story with Moses – let my people go…). During this quick departure, they didn’t have the time to let their dough to rise and instead of bread they the Matza – bread of the poor – for their desert track.

So, after a week of eating no real bread some factions invented the Mufleta – flat bread that can be prepared very quickly when the holiday ends (at the evening when the bakeries are not open yet).

The recipe:

·         3 cups of four

·         1.5 cups of water

·         1 spoon of oil

·         ½ teaspoon of salt

·         2-3 teaspoons of dry yeast

Mix all the ingredients and kneed it for 10 minutes.

Split the dough into balls in size of about half chicken egg and place all of them on an oiled surface.

Cover with a towel and let it rise for 30 minutes.

Put a frying pan on the stove.

Oil your kitchen counter.

Spread the first ball of dough with your hands until it gets to a size of a medium plate about 2mm thick (I consistently failed to get the correct shape out of it…).

Put the dough in the pan to fry while you start spreading the second one.

After the first got a golden color (fried from one side only), put the second on top of it and flip them – the new dough should touch the pan itself. Keep doing it until all are ready.

Once all are done, serve it with butter and honey (combination of the two is recommended). Its nice to spread the butter and honey and then fold it like a crepe or simply like an envelope.

The one I managed to take picture of was way under 2mm of thickness :)

Something went wrong - they came out too dry (I think) but me and my wife finished them all in any case...

It was interesting and different bread experience.

Next bread will be a more conventional one - already made a baguette starter for tomorrow - about 12 hours left.

Until the next post

Ilan