September 14, 2023 - 12:01am
The Breads of Egypt - Eish senn
Hello everyone,
I've posted the latest recipe on my blog for a type of bread we have in Egypt called "Eish Senn". It's a pocket-style bread with lots of wheat bran mixed into the dough. Have a look and let me know if you give it a try and what do you think of the flavour?
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Does this bread differ much from simply using a whole-wheat flour? Or perhaps there is another name specifically for a pita-like bread made from whole grain wheat flour?
Hey,
That's an interesting question. I haven't actually tested making this with whole wheat flour. Senn is always made with bran mixed into the plain white flour. However, bread in Egypt has a long history of government policies and subsidies. There's a lot of government affiliated mills across the country who buy subsidized wheat from the government and grind it into either 83% extraction flour (whole wheat) or 72% extraction flour (white, all-purpose).
The 83% extraction flour is the type that's sold to traditional bakeries that produce Eish baladi at a reduced cost for citizens because it's subsidized. A lot of bakeries do a preliminary sifting of the 83% flour to separate some bran to use for eish baladi which has the highest demand, and I suspect that the availability of bran made way for the creation of Senn, since bakers found that they have all this bran on their hands so they decide to put it into the dough.
Please allow me to thank you for your web site. It is attractive, the articles read very well, and the breads are interesting. It's especially to see similarities and differences between these breads eaten in Egypt and others around the world.
TomP
Thank you for reading. Glad you enjoyed it.