🍲 Kubaneh (Yemenite Pull-Apart Bread)

Ingredients

• 1 tsp salt
• 2½–3 cups lukewarm water (or enough for kneading dough)
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 3 tsp white granulated sugar
• 3 cups white, all-purpose wheat flour (optional: try using some sorghum flour)
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil or other fat
• 1 tsp black cumin (Nigella sativa; optional)

Method

1. Dissolve salt in lukewarm water.
2. Sprinkle yeast over lukewarm water and add sugar. Leave for 10 minutes until yeast is foamy.
3. Add yeast mixture to flour, and knead to form a dough.
4. After kneading the dough, allow it to sit 10 minutes until it begins to rise.
5. Repeat process: turn it and knead it again and let sit 10 minutes until it rises. Repeat this process 3 or 4 times until dough rises to the top of the kneading bowl and one is left with a uniform texture and consistency.
6. Grease the baking pot with the vegetable oil.
7. Divide dough into smaller pieces (8–10 round pieces).
8. Place all dough pieces in pot, one after the other; compacted together. Fill to one-third the capacity of baking pot and cover tightly with lid.
9. Preheat oven to 225–280°F (107–138°C). Bake bread for 1 hour at the higher temperature or 3 hours at the lower temperature. It should be golden brown.
10. Turn bread out onto a plate, turn bread upside down, and restore to baking pot.
11. Cover pot with lid and bake another hour; or reduce oven temperature to and bake overnight. If desired, remove from oven and afterwards return it only close to the Sabbath.
12. Serve hot with clarified butter, usually also with tomato salsa mixed with chopped coriander.