Jordan’s Chewy, Crispy All-Purpose Bread
The ruins of Petra continue to be home to a few Bedouin families.
From the caves of Petra, a simple flatbread fit for any meal
The awe, that I expected. Stumble through the ornate acres of Petra, massive temples, tombs, even stadiums carved into towering sandstone canyons, and it’s hard to feel otherwise. Even the sandstorm that whipped my face and stole my breath wasn’t entirely unexpected, declarative winds ripping and funneling over and down cliffs like a parched waterfall.
Rather, my surprise was Fatima Mohammad’s wistful affection for Jordan’s ancient, photogenic ruins. “When I learned this,” she told me sitting cross-legged on her kitchen floor, indicating the supple mounds of dough she kneaded, “we lived in Petra. When I was a child, we lived in the caves.” In fact, some 40 families still do. Which is a bit boggling. And jealousy inducing.
Mohammad is Bedouin, a traditionally nomadic people who have lived across the region’s deserts. Most now live in modern homes like Mohammad’s, perched at the edge of the UNESCO heritage site, though some remain in the ruins themselves. She’d offered to teach me shrak, a simple but wonderful flatbread, variants of which are found across the Arab world.
As Mohammad worked the dough, her husband, Fayez Mousa, poured glasses of sugary mint tea. In winter, they add sage. "This is what we call Bedouin whiskey," he said with a laugh. He, too, lived in the caves as a child. "It was fantastic," he said. “In the winter times, it’s warm. In the summer times, it’s cool."
For Bedouins, shrak is both daily bread—eaten at nearly every meal—and utensil. Torn hunks are the perfect scoop for dishes such as khlayet bandora (a thick stew of tomatoes, peppers, chilies and garlic) and mfaraket batata (a mash of potatoes cooked with zucchini, spices and eggs) both of which Mohammad prepared that day.
But for me, the bread was the star. Mohammad worked the dough—a blend of whole-wheat flour, water and salt—to a glutenous mound, creating an elastic mass that she eventually divided, then stretched by hand until each piece was larger than a pizza, yet paper thin.
The cooking was perhaps the most fascinating step. Her "oven" was a saj, which resembles an overturned wok on stubby legs. The domed surface is heated by gas—in the caves, it would have been wood—and was left dry as Mohammad deftly stretched each piece of almost transparent dough over it. It bubbled and crisped in seconds.
I’d seen a similar flatbread made in Fes, Morocco, but there the dome (in Fes shaped like a lightbulb) and dough were doused with oil, creating a delicious but entirely different effect in the finished bread.
As Mohammad peeled each finished piece off the saj, we drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled them with za’atar, the local blend of sesame seeds, herbs and sumac. Tender, chewy, bready and just barely crisp at the edges. We ate them all, propped against the pillows that crowded the floor. It was easy to imagine eating these in a warm cave on a cold night.
"What makes our food tasty isn’t the food," Mousa said, nodding toward his wife, "but the person making the food."
J.M. Hirsch
Jordanian Bedouin Flatbread
1. On a very lightly floured counter, first press one of the dough balls into a 3-inch disk. Then use a rolling pin to roll it into a 6-inch round.
2. Gently lift the dough and, using your fingers and a gentle pulling motion, stretch it into an 8-inch round. Lightly flour the dough.
3. Carefully drape the dough over an overturned bowl and, using your hands, gently and evenly stretch the dough down the sides of the bowl.
4. As you stretch, the dough should become thin enough to be almost translucent. It’s fine if there are a few small tears in the dough.
