Sourdough Lebanese Morning Bread (Khobz al-Sabah)

This Lebanese Morning Bread is a tasty pita-style sourdough bread made with three kinds of flour: all-purpose, whole wheat, and corn meal. 

The combination of whole wheat, corn meal, and all purpose flour, along with the sourdough starter, adds so much texture and flavor to this bread. 

This pita is easy to make and you can follow a leisurely schedule for preparing the dough. The original recipe calls for corn meal (I used yellow corn meal), but you could substitute barley flour, oat flour, durum wheat flour, or more whole wheat flour.

This Lebanese morning bread recipe was adapted from the book, Savory Baking from the Mediterranean: Focaccias, Flatbreads, Rusks, Tarts, and Other Breads by Anissa Helou. It is the Bread Baking Babes' monthly bake chosen and adapted by Elizabeth from Blog from OUR Kitchen. 

Khobz is Arabic for "bread," and al-Sabah is evidently Arabic for "the morning." Thus, the name, morning bread. Essentially, it is made in the style of pita bread, which is common in the Mediterranean Middle East. 

For breakfast, you can serve it with an assortment of cheeses, hummus, hard-boiled eggs, labne, olives, zhug, or simply sprinkle it with za'atar. For dinner, use it for dipping into soups and stews or stuffing with salads, meats, and cheeses. 

I have a few recipes for pita (or pocket) bread, including one with half whole wheat and half all purpose flour that starts with a sponge (a mixture of yeast, water, and flour), one with spelt, and one with all whole wheat called Aish Baladi, which is from Egypt. 

How to Make This Sourdough Lebanese Morning Bread:

This bread requires very little mixing or hands on time. 

First, make sure you have an active 100% hydration sourdough starter. Take a small amount if that starter and feed it with some whole wheat flour and water and let it sit for a few hours, until you can see bubbles and it appears to have "domed" in your container. 

Next, combine the starter, more water, corn flour, and all purpose flour by hand. Once it's mixed, let it sit, covered, for twenty minutes, and then add some salt and pinch and fold it in. 

After that, you will need to do about three more stretch and folds every 20 minutes, to develop and strengthen the dough. What is a stretch and fold? This means pulling one side of the dough, stretching it out, and pulling it over the top. This helps develop gluten without requiring a lot of kneading. 

Once you've finished the stretches and folds, you can let it sit at room temperature for about 6 hours before shaping and baking in the evening, or you can let it rise at room temperature for about an hour and then let it rest in the refrigerator overnight for baking in the morning. 

Once you are ready to bake the bread, divide it into six pieces. 

If your dough has been refrigerated, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for about ten minutes to let it warm up a bit. 

Then, form each piece into a ball and let them rest for ten minutes, covered. 

While you are prepping the dough for baking, heat your oven to 450 to 500 degrees F with a baking stone, baking steel, or cast iron pan on a rack. I used a cast iron 16 inch pizza pan in my oven and baked three pitas at a time after testing one of the pieces. 

You don't have to worry too much about opening and closing your oven door because your baking vessel holds onto the heat to bake the outside of the dough. 

You can also "bake" the khobz al-sabah on a covered grill or a super hot cast iron pan on the stovetop if you prefer to get a better char on the outside of the bread. 

Roll your dough pieces out with a rolling pin into thin rounds. 

Making them thin helps them to puff up once they hit the hot baking surface because the outsides crisp up immediately while the inside gets steamy, which immediately inflates the bread. Thus, you end up with the pocket in the middle! 

Magic, right? 

The trick is to make sure the pitas are done baking without over cooking them. Once they have puffed up, flip them over and bake them for just a few minutes more. 

The baking time should be about five to ten minutes. 

Immediately wrap them in a towel to keep them warm and to prevent them to becoming too crisp and cracker-like. The goal is to have a soft bread with pockets in the middle to stuff with all kinds of goodies. 

Sample Schedules:

To Make this Bread for Dinner:

In the evening, feed your levain, cover, and let sit overnight. 

The next morning, combine the dough ingredients, and when you are done stretching and folding, let it sit, covered at room temperature. Bake the breads right before dinnertime. 

To Make this Bread for Breakfast: 

In the morning, feed your levain, cover, and let sit until early evening. Next, combine the dough ingredients and follow the instructions for the stretching and folding throughout the evening. Let the dough sit at room temperature for about an hour and then refrigerate overnight, covered. 

The next morning, divide the dough, roll it out, and bake right before breakfast. 

Ideas for Leftovers:

My favorite way to use leftovers to make pita chips. You can also use the pitas for Mediterranean Pizzas. So good. 

This month the Bread Baking Babes are making Sourdough Lebanese Morning Bread. After the recipe, be sure to check out everyone's versions. Visit our host kitchen for more details. 

Lebanese Morning Bread

Yield: 6 servings

Author: Karen's Kitchen Stories

Prep time: 1 HourCook time: 10 MinInactive time: 18 HourTotal time: 19 H & 10 M

This Lebanese Morning Bread is a sourdough pita-style sourdough bread made with three kinds of flour, all-purpose, whole wheat, and corn meal.

Ingredients

For the Preferment

• 50 grams 100 percent hydration active sourdough starter
• 50 gram water
• 50 grams whole wheat flour

For the Final Dough

• All of the preferment
• 250 grams (1 2/3 cups) unbleached all purpose flour
• 50 grams (1/3 cup) corn meal
• 160 grams (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons) water
• 7 grams (~1 teaspoon) salt (if you use kosher or sea salt, the volume will vary)

Instructions

1. Mix the sourdough starter with the water and whole wheat flour. Cover and let rest overnight or all day. See sample schedules.
2. Combine all of the dough ingredients except the salt in a bowl with your hand and mix until just combined. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
3. Add the salt and pinch it into the dough and then fold the dough over the middle several times. Pinch the dough to make sure the salt dissolves. You should not feel any salt grains. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
4. Stretch and fold the dough three more times, every 20 minutes, letting it rest, covered, in between.
5. Let the dough rest at room temperature for all day if baking in the evening, or overnight in the refrigerator if baking in the morning. See sample schedule.
6. Heat your oven to 450 degrees F with a baking stone, baking steel, or cast iron pizza pan on the center rack.
7. Divide the dough into 6 pieces and form each piece into a ball. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
8. Roll out each dough piece thinly and place the on the baking stone/steel/cast iron. Once the dough puffs up, flip it with tongs and continue cooking. The total time should be about five to 10 minutes.
9. Once you remove the pitas from the oven, wrap them immediately in dish towels to prevent drying out. Serve right away.

Nutrition Facts

Calories

246

Fat (grams)

2 g

Sat. Fat (grams)

0 g

Carbs (grams)

53 g

Fiber (grams)

6 g

Net carbs

47 g

Sugar (grams)

2 g

Protein (grams)

8 g

Cholesterol (grams)

0 mg

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2023/09/sourdough-lebanese-morning-bread-khobz.html

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