Manakish Zaatar

Manakish Zaatar, a lebanese flat bread is frequently had for breakfast here in middle east countries. Zaatar is a combination of dried herbs. Zaatar stuffed croissants are very common here. This Manakish Zaatar is had along with olives, cucumber and cheese. But we are not very fond of cheese and thus we have with regular yoghurt. 

When Rafeeda of The Big Sweet Tooth has suggested the recipes for this month, I was overwhelmed with joy as most of them are in my to do list and there are non sweet bakes too. Sweets are something that I make it very rare here. Zaatar was something that I wanted to try since long. And here it is.. 

Recipe Source: The Kitchn

Ingredients:

Lukewarm water 1/2 cup

Sugar 1/4 tsp

Active dry yeast 1 1/8 tsp

All Purpose Flour 1 1/2 cups

Salt 1/2 tsp

Olive Oil 1 tbsp

Zaatar topping:

Ground Sumac 1/8 cup

Dried Oregano 1 tbsp

Dried Thyme 1 tbsp

Roasted Sesame seeds 1 tbsp

Salt

Olive oil 1/4 cup

Method:

Take 2 tbsp of water (from the 1/2 cup) in a bowl, add sugar and yeast. Mix well and keep it aside until it becomes frothy and increase in size. This would take 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, add salt and olive oil to the flour and keep it aside. When the yeast mixture is ready, add it along with the remaining water little by little to the flour to form a smooth dough.

Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a damp cloth until it gets doubled. This would take an hour.

Remove the dough. Divide it into 2-3 equal parts. Put them back in the same greased bowl with the covered damp cloth for another 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 205 deg C for 10 minutes. 

Mix the ingredients for the zaatar topping. Take the dough ball. Spread it evenly to 7-8 inch diameter. Make indentations from the center so as to add the zaatar topping leaving an 1-2 inch around. 

Take a heaped tbsp of the zaatar topping and spread it around. 

Grease a 8 inch round cake pan. Add the prepared zaatar. Bake for 12 minutes until crisp and gets slightly brown along the sides. (The original recipe called for only 8 minutes. But it varies depending upon the size of the oven and stone used.) 

Notes:

I halved the original recipe. But when I made 4 equal balls out of the dough, it turned out to be too much crisp and very flat. So 2-3 equal balls out of the dough (if prepared with the measurements above) would be much better.