Sabich – the ultimate sandwich or a feast fit for kings: pitta, hummus, aubergine, eggs, and pickles

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Roast aubergine with capers, anchovy, pomegranate seeds, and garlic

Softish hard-boiled eggs

Middle Eastern Salad

Hummus with coriander and pomegranate seeds

Middle Eastern quick pickles

Pitta Bread

I first heard about the Iraqi-Israeli sabich when I was reading Kitty and Al Tait’s fabulous book, Breadsong*.  I was looking at her pitta bread recipe and my eye was captivated by her serving suggestion: fill it with hummus, soft-boiled eggs, fried aubergine, and pickles.  It sounded absolutely delicious and I immediately set about creating a low-calorie-dense  version.

* If you don’t already have a copy, hie to your nearest independent bookseller and get one immediately. It’s a book about baking, parenting a girl in the midst of a mental-health sandstorm, and being a girl finding her way out of the sandstorm – with the help of baking.  It is joyful, moving, and has brilliant bread recipes.

Pitta bread* doesn’t quite tick the low-calorie-dense box, but it’s not a disaster either, especially if you don’t eat the whole lot yourself (hard).  

Frying anything is not optimum diet-fodder, but aubergine is in a class of its own – the usual procedure is to upend a 5-litre tin of olive oil over a frying pan, read a few chapters of a book or take the cat** out for a walk, then replace the cap and add the aubergine.  Not good for downsizing but also unnecessary for delicious aubergine.

Hummus, eggs and pickles are ideal downsizing material, and with the addition of a green salad or a Middle Eastern chopped salad, sabich  can be anything from the ultimate breakfast, a delicious lunch, or a glorious feast.

*If you want to make it gluten-free or less calorie dense, leave out the pitta and add some white beans or potatoes. It won't be sabich but it will be delicious.

** Cat may prefer to stay in the warm and read a book.

When I served it at a last-minute Epiphany lunch a couple of weeks ago – what better way to celebrate the arrival of the Magi than a table-ful of Israeli street food – one friend declared she wanted to eat it every day for the rest of her life, and a three-year-old clambered onto the table to get her hands on the bowl of hummus. There is nothing like small children liking my food for making me feel very pleased with myself.

Roast aubergine with capers, anchovy, pomegranate seeds, and garlic

This incredibly simple dish gets more groans of delight than almost anything else I cook. Pouring litres of olive oil over aubergines is delicious, but so is doing it like this.

Serves 4 – 6

• 3 Aubergines  
• 4 Anchovy fillets  
• 1 – 2 tablespoons of capers  
• Balsamic vinegar
• A few sprigs of thyme  
• A small handful of parsley  
• 1 – 2 cloves of garlic
• Pomegranate seeds  
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil and balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 200º / 180º fan / gas mark 6
2. Cut the aubergines in half and make a criss-cross of cuts.
3. Brush a little olive oil over each half and a good grinding of salt and pepper.
4. Roast for about 40 minutes until completely cooked through.
5. Finely chop the capers, anchovies, thyme and parsley, and crush the garlic. You can do it in the food processor if you want to be quick.
6. Mix together with 4 teaspoons each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and salt and pepper.
7. Spoon over the aubergines and sprinkle some pomegranate seeds.
8. Serve hot or cold.

Diva Notes

Aubergines

Undercooked aubergine is like eating a pair of pyjamas. Cook them thoroughly or your friends may never come back.

You may need to brush them with a little more oil halfway through cooking.

Additions

For the purposes of sabich, you don’t need to add the anchovy and garlic et al – although it is very good – just add some more salt and pepper, and drizzle them with a bit of balsamic and olive oil before serving.

Softish hard-boiled eggs

1. Bring a pan of water to a good rolling boil.
2. Add eggs and cook for precisely 6 minutes.
3. Remove, and immediately plunge them in cold water.

If you want them a little more done, boil them for a minute or two longer.

Diva Notes

Multiple eggs

If you are cooking more than a couple of eggs, consider using a lift-outable insert, or tip them in gently using a sieve – so all the eggs go in and come out at the same time.

Peeling eggs

This can be a fiddly, time-consuming job. Ask your skivvies  (guests; family; random people off the street) to peel them

Middle Eastern Salad

All over the Middle East, versions of this salad appear as a vital – almost national – part of their food. It is delicious, and not surprisingly, eaten at almost every meal. Wherever it comes from, I love it, and to avoid diplomatic incident, this is my South-East London version.    

Serves 4 – 6

• 4 handfuls of cherry tomatoes  
• 2 small cucumbers
• A red or yellow pepper  
• Half a red onion
• Pomegranate seeds  
• 1 fresh chilli (optional),  
• Parsley, mint, or basil  
• Half a lemon.  
• Olive oil
• Salt

1. Finely dice all the vegetables, including the lemon.
2. Finely chop the herbs, if using.
3. Put it all in a bowl. Add salt, pepper and the olive oil, and mix really well.

Diva Notes

You can make it in a food processor using the pulse button. It is slightly more like a salsa, but it is MUCH quicker and very good.

Lemon  

You can zest the lemon with a microplane grater and juice the lemon, but I rather like the slightly rougher texture you get if you dice the whole thing, and it somehow makes the lemon juice less overpoweringly acidic.

Hummus with coriander and pomegranate seeds

Serves 4 – 6

• 2 tins of chickpeas, or 200g dry chickpeas soaked and cooked with peppercorns,  cardamom and coriander seeds.
• A little of the cooking water  
• A pinch each of cumin, coriander, and cardamom (husk removed) seeds, and smoked paprika.    
• Zest and juice of a lemon  
• A handful of parsley and coriander  
• A clove or two of garlic
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• A tablespoon of tahini
• Pomegranate seeds
• Salt and pepper

1. Give the spices a thorough pestle-and-mortaring.  
2. Roughly chop the parsley and coriander .
3. Chuck everything except the pomegranate seeds and some of the herbs in the food processor and blend until smooth.
4. Season until it tastes fabulous.
5. Mix in the pomegranate seeds and sprinkle a few on top, along with some chopped parsley and coriander.

Adding some of the cooking liquid helps the hummus be creamy without using too much oil or tahini.  You can add more olive oil and tahini if you want more calorie density in your life.

Diva Notes

Tahini

Hummus should have tahini in it but that increases its calorie-density. Not everybody likes it – and if you are one of them or want keep things as LCD as possible, leave it out.

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Middle Eastern quick pickles

I can’t quite get my head around the idea that pickles are a middle eastern thing: they are so much associated with pickled onions and Branston Pickle – which I have just googled and it turns out  is an excellent source of Selenium, Calcium, Vitamin K, Phosphorus and Vitamin C.  That would have been useful information to present to my mother, who did not see my point about the merits of eating it with absolutely everything.

I have the wonderful Diana Henry to thank for putting me right, and this is substantially her recipe.

Use whatever veg you have lurking in your fridge – onion; carrot; cauliflower; radish; cabbage; chilli.

• About 800g vegetables
• 3 teaspoons caraway seeds
• 2 teaspoons black peppercorns
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 800ml red wine vinegar
• 500ml water
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt flakes
• A couple of thyme sprigs
• A tablespoon of chilli flakes
• 5 cloves of garlic

1. Give the spices a light bruising in a pestle and mortar.
2. Put the vinegar and water in a saucepan with the spices, salt and sugar. Bring slowly to the boil to give the salt and sugar time to dissolve.  Leave to cool.

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Preparing the vegetables:

1. Peel and diagonally slice carrots.
2. Top and tail radishes, and quarter lengthways.
3. Cut onions into thin wedges.
4. Cut red or white cabbage into small chunks.  
5. Break and cut cauliflower into small florets.
6. Very finely slice the garlic and any chilli.

Put the vegetables into clean jars and cover with the vinegar and spices.

Ideally, you would leave them at room temperature for a couple of days before refrigerating, but if like me, you have left things till the last minute, they taste pretty good if you use them almost immediately.  They keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Diva Notes

Make sure your jars do not taste of dishwasher tabs: pickled Finish is unlikely to prove a hit.

Exactly why makers of dishtabs make them so that they infuse things with their smell is one of life’s mysteries.    

Pitta Bread

You can easily buy pitta bread but making them fresh is very delicious, so if you have the time it’s really worth it.  It is better to have too many than too few.  Freeze any left over.

Makes 8 – 12 pittas

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 12g salt
• 7g (a sachet or 2 teaspoons) dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 300g tepid water
• 10g olive oil

1. Put yeast and sugar in a small bowl and cover with an inch or so of warm water. Give it a whisk. Leave for 20 minutes to start frothing.  
2. Put the flour, salt, and oil in a bowl.
3. Put the bowl on the weighing scales, add the frothy yeast and top up with tepid water until it weighs 300g  
4. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 8 – 10 minutes until smooth and springy. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a teatowel, and leave to rise for an hour.  
5. Turn onto a floured suface and cut into 8 – 12 pieces and form them roughly into rounds. Leave them to rise for 30 minutes.
6. Heat the oven to 230º / fan 210º / gas mark 8 and put in a baking tray to get really hot. – you’ll probably need two or cook in batches.
7. Roll out the dough balls into  ovals  ½ – 1cm thick.   Lay them on the hot baking tray and bake for about 6 minutes – or until  they have ballooned and are faintly golden.
8. Cover with a cloth to keep them warm and serve as soon as possible.

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