Lohah

If you've read the early posts of this blog, you'll know that at one point I made, from scratch, 90% of my family's bread products.

Today, I went to google the name of a specific flatbread and I stumbled upon lohah, the Djiboutian/Somali/Yemeni bread that is a cross between a pita and a pancake.

I felt inspired. I scanned some recipes from the Internet and decided to have at it.

Phase one: the dough

Ingredients

• about 2 teaspoons yeast

• about four cups warm water

• a hearty squirt of honey (about two teaspoons sugar of whatever form-- you want to feed the yeast)

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• about 1/2 teaspoon salt (I got fancy and used my pink Himalayan salt)

• about four cups flour (I used organic, unbleached Gold Medal that I found on clearance at Target for $2.94 for a five pound bag; I read this should be made with sourgum flour which I have worked with in the past. My friend said it requires millet.)

Now, this is a fermented dough. You stir it up and leave it sit. At least 30 minutes. I'm aiming for 2 hours. I covered it with a dish towel, dampened with warm water and set it near the cracked oven door. The oven had been 350 degrees previously. I'm trying to mimic the warmth and humidity of East Africa.

I let it rise two hours, and it presented with some fabulous volume.

At this point, the directions said to stir as a form of kneading. I did so, pleased to find a great blobby, elastic texture. Volume fell by about 1/3 at this point.

The next rise will be about an hour. I'm winging it. 

Mine got really stringy-- fry until bubbly and mostly dry on one side and cover the pan for a little bit more to finish.

Recreating breakfast

Nearly everyday that we were in Djibouti, my traveling companion (M) and I visited the juice bar at Cafeteria Sana'a a couple blocks from our hotel. It was normal a late morning break, usually after our second walk around the city. 

Around 7:30 a.m., we'd have breakfast on the porch of our hotel, a cup of café crême with a big cube of sugar accompanied by a basket of baguette slices and a couple croissants. The plates that came with the basket had a dollop of strawberry jelly and a large pat of butter. With my recovering broken hand, sometimes the butter started too cold to manipulate but within seconds it literally would begin to melt.

After this breakfast, we'd walk. With temperatures at 90 degrees F (even that early) and humidity around 85 percent, it didn't take long to find ourselves drenched in our own perspiration. We'd return to our hotel to drink a liter of water and let ourselves dry out and then we'd repeat. 

On the second morning tour, we capped everything off with a juice from Cafeteria Sana'a. 

The first day I ordered ginger juice. I thought, since gastro-international issues can pop up during travels in Africa, ginger would help keep my insides healthy. It was fabulous. Spicy and zesty and refreshing, even 20 minutes later still walking around in the heat that ginger juice left and incredibly pleasant taste in my mouth.

The next visit they had run out of ginger. This afternoon, they said. I was heartbroken so I let M order me a mango. It was delightful but lacked the zip and surprise of the ginger.

We returned the next day. No ginger. Maybe tomorrow, they said. I ordered "melon." I had no idea what type of melon to expect. I'm not a huge melon fan, but isn't the point of traveling to expand your horizons and be adventurous? Would it be watermelon? Honeydew?

Cantaloupe. Served in a frozen mug. Not as breathtaking as ginger but a flavor I soon learned to crave after an hour or two in the hot sun. That day we had a second juice, lemon. Our server offered us lemon with mint, something not on the board, but at this point we may have become regulars. This became M's pick.

The final trip to the juice bar we ordered large juices instead of regular. Still no ginger. So I stayed with my melon.

And today I made a breakfast that incorporates all of these taste memories:

- Take and bake Archer Farms baguette with Brie from Aldi and a chunk with butter.

- Simply Balanced green tea with ginger.

- Cantaloupe juice

My first attempt at my own cantaloupe juice smoothie included about 2 cups cantaloupe and 1/2 cup water in the blender. Suitable, but lacked the frozen mug. 

Stuffed Burgers

One day soon I shall blog about my culinary adventures in Djibouti and Yemen. I fell in love with freshly made cantaloupe juice, could have survived on bread and butter (in temperatures so hot the butter melted on your plate) and decided maybe I'm not so fond of Ethiopian. The Yemeni cuisine was worth returning for-- never have I eaten somewhere where the spices were so effectively used in a dish. I now believe I have never had a true saffron rice, the blend of saffron (which did more than merely turn the rice yellow) and the touch of clove really did tease the palate.

Oh, look at that. I did blog about the food. My true lament is that I did not bring home honey from Yemen. The color was so richly yellow it almost appeared orange. We had a small bowl of yogurt with this honey at our hotel and it was so simple and fulfilling. I miss it. Painfully.

I brought home American sauce as a joke for my family, purchased in the Nougaprix in Djibouti. I thought it was Thousand Island dressing and my husband confirmed it on our burgers tonight. Thousand Island without pickles. That works for my husband as he loves Thousand Island but hates pickles.

So, last night we finally went grocery shopping. We bought $155 worth of food (90 items) at Aldi. For the first time in months my freezer and fridge are full.

My husband made burgers tonight, stuffing the centers with feta and mixing fresh spinach into the ground beef. Good stuff. Served with leftover sides-- mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes and corn bake.