Yemen

This week we are in Yemen. Yemen shares a border with Saudi Arabia and sits at the end of the Arabian peninsula. Yemen has been in a state of political crisis since 2011. Eight long years of protests and unrest has led to significant struggles for the Yemeni people. They are in the midst of a famine and almost 17 million people no longer have access to safe drinking water. When you learn about countries that have so little, it is harder to live guilt-free in a land of abundance. This past week I sat down to a table overflowing with food for a Thanksgiving feast. I think this year I’ll be a little more aware of eating all the leftovers, even when I’ve had mashed potatoes for five straight days. What a difference it might make if we didn’t throw so much food away here in the United States. Or better yet, what if we didn’t buy and make more than we needed in the first place? Maybe someday we will live in a world with a more equal distribution of nourishment and have a world without hunger…maybe.  

I decided to make Shafoot–a sourdough bread covered in a spicy yogurt sauce and Malawa–a sort of flatbread that is loosely reminiscent of a croissant in that it is flakey and buttery. I’m guessing Yemeni people don’t often eat these together, but they both seemed interesting and I couldn’t pick between the two so I just made both. Our initial impression was that this meal would be sub-par. When I think about things that get soggy they are some of my least favorite things…the end of a cereal bowl or a sandwich with tomatoes that has been sitting too long. I’ve not met many people who would seek these mushy things out. With this recipe we intentionally left it to get mushy and soggy. We were very skeptical about this meal and it completely surprised us. We both had seconds and were excited to have leftovers for lunch. My favorite part about this little cooking adventure is finding new recipes and flavors that I never would have ever tried without this experience.

The Malawa dough came together really nicely. Sometimes when I make bread I question whether it is wet enough or dry enough, but this recipe from ShebaYemeni didn’t leave room for questions. It was perfect. I did the first step in my KitchenAid mixer and a shiny, firm-but-pliable dough came together. I let it rest as she describes. I was skeptical that I would be able to stretch it into a tissue paper thin rectangle like she demonstrates in her video. I figured her fingers were doing some magical dance on the dough that I couldn’t see and wouldn’t be able to replicate. But she wasn’t joking, the dough is very easy to work with. Once it was stretched out I rubbed butter all over it, flipped it over and rubbed some more. Then we folded it into a line and tied it in two knots, tucking in the ends before letting it rest. While it rested, I heated our pizza stone to 500 degrees.  

Baking the Malawa was fairly straight forward just like the rest of the recipe. Colin slid it off the pizza peel and onto the baking stone. If you don’t have a pizza peel, I think a cutting board would work fine, you might just need help holding it while sliding it into the oven. (It is important to put a lot of cornmeal on the pizza peel before setting the dough on so that it will slide off without too much sticking.) They only took about 5 minutes to turn golden brown and delightfully crispy. They are sure to make your whole house smell amazing.