Kaak alasreya/ Kaak/ Lebanese Street Bread, the quintessential Lebanese street bread! A handbag-like shape savory roll covered with sesame seeds – crispy on the outside and chewy a bit, baked in a flame oven and sold through cart vendors in Beirut – a street food and an ideal snack on the go, usually eaten handheld, that can be equally good for breakfast paired with a cup of tea.
If you visit Lebanon, don’t miss these insanely delicious treats and try to get them fresh and warm. In Lebanon, no one bothers to make at home as its easier to buy them ready; but living abroad, there is always a kind of food that we miss and crave. Have you ever had one of those craves when homesickness hits and you long desperately for flavors you grew up eating? Food has really a powerful role in our lives, it is part of our identity, and part of our dear memories can be found in a dish, every dish has a story that stays with us for life.
It is the experiences that were created while enjoying the kaak that makes it very near and dear to my heart and most probaly to most Lebanese expats around the world who grew on it! It tastes incredibly good. Put the kettle on, make yourself a cup of tea, and eat the kaak right out of the oven with zaatar, labneh or any spreadable cheese! How scrumptious!
Grilled Lebanese Flatbread Recipe
In a large ceramic bowl, mix the flour, salt, yeast and sugar. Add the luke-warm water and combine all the ingredients with your hands. (You may need to add more water than the called for. The amount of moisture in the flour determines how much you need to add). When the mixture starts coming together, knead it thoroughly and push your hands curving your fingers over the dough, getting a malleable dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and set aside for 1 hour to double in size.
When the dough has doubled in size, sprinkle some flour on a counter top and divide the dough to nine equal portions.
Place one dough at a time over the floured surface and stretch it with a rolling pin; roll it to a round circle about 20 cm/8 inches in diameter and about 1.5 cm ½ inch thick.
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Place the round dough on a parchment-lined sheet or silicon mat (you need to transfer it delicately to the sheet to maintain its form). Using a brush, delicately, brush the surface of the kaak with the prepared glaze. Generously sprinkle sesame seeds, and delicately tap the bread with your hands, helping the sesame seeds stick to the bread. Set aside for 30 minutes for a second rise, this will help develops lighter and fluffier kaak!
Bake this Lebanese classic, nothing beats the aroma of kaak baking in the oven! Follow the instructions, it is simple and nearly fail-proof!
Zaatar, or any spreadable cheese, dip or whatever your heart desire, this is a versatile bread, and it goes well with any dip
Lebanese Milk And Bread Pudding (aish El Saraya)
I am Hadia, the face behind Hadia’s Lebanese Cuisine. I grew up in Beirut Lebanon and I currently reside in Kinshasa, Congo with my husband and my three adorable sons, ...Several afternoons a week I rush out of work, heading across town for my Arabic tutoring session, which is really just an excuse for Wael and me to gab about the ongoing saga of his engagement and other such gossip. I tap my fingers on the window of the service, the van stuck in the smog-filled traffic of Damascus' rush hour. Finally reaching Bab Touma, I leap out and hustle into the winding alleys of the old city. Bab Touma is the Christian quarter of the old city and right at the entrance, between the chicken vendor and the kunafe maker, is a small bakery selling small twisted cookie rings and puffy round breads and sesame breadsticks. When my stomach grumbles I stop quickly, paying a few coins for one of those soft breads, pressing it to my nose to inhale its orange water scent before hurrying on my way.
The bread is called qurban, which means sacrifice, and it is the bread used during communion for the Orthodox Christian churches of Syria and Lebanon. But don't worry, my afternoon snack isn't sacrilegious, qurban are often for sale for public consumption. You can literally smell this bread baking from blocks away, the scent of orange flower water and yeast hooking your nose like a ring though a cow's nostril. They are best when your nose draws you to them, fresh out of the oven, the sweet rounds marked in the center with a stamp in Aramaic, soft and lightly sweet.
I had forgotten about qurban until I picked up a copy of Annisa Helou's Savory Baking from the Mediterranean (I am a Ms. Helou groupy and all her books are fabulous, including this latest one). Ms. Helou, who is Lebanese Christian, describes rediscovering qurban years later as her madeleine moment, and I can understand why. Since the first time I made them at home they've been in high demand, and I have no objection because I love the way it makes the house smell. Plus, I've had plenty of practice to tweak and streamline the recipe to be more in line with my memory. These are perfect breakfast breads, toasted and spread with sweet butter, or they make a great sweet-savory sandwich with some salty halloumi cheese. And you need not be religious nor observant to enjoy them, though if you have a cup of wine alongside you could pretend you were.
Sweet Lebanese Sesame Tahini Rolls Recipe
1. Place the yeast in a small with 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Add 1/3 of a cup of warm water and set aside for 5-10 minutes, until bubbly.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine the flour, remaining sugar, salt, and mahlep. Add the butter and rub it into the flour mixture with your finger tips until well distributed. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, add the yeast mixture and add 1/2 cup warm water. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
3. Knead the dough in the bowl for 3-5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Rub the inside of the bow with oil to coat, place the dough bal inside. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rise until doubled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours.
Lebanese Pita Bread Recipe {4 Ingredient Quick Recipe}
4. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and shape each piece into a ball. Let rest 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surafce, roll each dough ball out into a circe about 6 inches in diameter. Place on a greased or lined baking sheet, cover with a kitchen towel and let rise one hour. Preheat oven to 400 F.
5. Press each dough round with the tines of a fork to make a square in the center. Make sure to press deeply as this will prevent the dough from puffing too much in the oven. Place in the oven and bake 15-17 minutes, until golden. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze. When the bread comes out of the oven brush generously with the butter-flower water mixture. Let cool slightly before serving.At first everything seemed so small, which probably had to do with the narrowness of the streets and the way the homes were built almost up to the road. It was the second day of the trip to Lebanon that I had been thinking about about for the better part of my life, and already I felt a kinship with the very bedrock of the old country, a ubiquitous creamy stone that lies not too far beneath the topsoil. Along the highway leading to the village of El Mtein, one could see what appeared to be huge bites taken out of hillsides, revealing the stone underneath.
By 11 a.m., after a few stops to ask which way, we pulled up to one of the many stone houses—some rehabbed, others war-torn—lining the village streets. Waiting for us outside the front door were my cousins, along with the obvious matriarch of the family who is mother and grandmother to the clan all living together under her roof. She was holding a plate of her ka’ik (it was Easter season, and ka’ik is for Easter), offering it along with the kind of kisses that every Lebanese Sitti gives to her family and to all small children, Sitti kisses that are repeated over and over again against the cheek like a story too good to stop telling.
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That none of us had met before seemed irrelevant as we recognized the family-feel in each other’s faces (it’s all in the eyes, honey) and hugged it out, reunion-style, there on the front porch. We started eating immediately the semi-sweet ka’ik, Rosalie’s being more biscuit-like than the bread versions we make. Watching my mother eat those cookies amid her people instructed me about the swoon response she has always had to the flavors of ka’ik, the mahleb and the anise: these are the flavors and fragrance of home, even a
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