We had no idea of what sabich was till we came across a photograph in the introductory chapters in one of our favorite books of last year. We drooled at the sabich photograph in Zahav Cookbook which showed the fried eggplant stacks filled in a pita and a bright yellow dressing. The photograph was of Oved’s Sabich and we soon started googling to find out what this was all about.

We found out that sabich is a pita sandwich quite popular in israel and originally brought over by persian migrants. It has the pocket pita stuffed with fried eggplant slices, israeli salad and boiled eggs as accompaniment. The dressing is hummus/tahini dressing along-with a bright yellow dressing that is called amba. In indian language amba means mango and our curiosity was immediately piqued. Turns out its a mustardy and vinegary mildly spiced oil free pickle made from mangoes which has found its way over to persia from india. The amba dressing is just the pureed pickle which adds the sour mustardy and citrusy kick to the sandwich.

We then saw this video of Oved’s Sabich and were totally ready to make this for ourselves.

A quick trip to the supermarket and we had most ingredients including the Amba pickle from a turkish grocery store in Madison called the Istanbul SuperMarket. What we could not find though was some really good pita bread. Michael Solomonov’s Zahav cookbook came to the rescue. We made the jump and baked our first pita breads at home using Michael Solomonov’s recipe. And what a rewarding recipe this is. We can’t wait to visit Philadelphia and eat these crafted by chef michael at Zahav.

We hand shaped our pitas and set them to bake on a preheated inverted sheet pan at 550 F and were absolutely excited to watch it puff up in our oven.

The first one we made just got eaten right out of the oven. We opened it and we saw some steam escape and we doused it with some olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and it disappeared in minutes.

Below is the bottle of amba pickle we found at the grocery store in Madison. We pureed some of the pickle and adjusted some seasoning to get our amba dressing.

We fried the eggplant slices with some salt and turmeric rubbed on them, made some tomato and cucumber salad, boiled and peeled the eggs and fresh pickled thinly shaved cabbage in some vinegar. The zahav cookbook also has hooked us up with a brilliant tahini by soom foods. This single ingredient product is deserving of a post of its own. We used it to create the tahini dressing according to the zahav recipe.

After that it was time to assemble our own Sabich. We opened the pita and layered in some cabbage, some tahini dressing, some amba, some eggplant slices, some boiled eggs, some cucumber tomato salad and then repeated till we had an overflowing pita. Then the conversation stopped as we both got busy munching our sabich down.

Even though we adapted a few changes to suit our palates and availability of ingredients the end product was a truly delicious and filling lunch.

We made some hummus next day again using the recipe from zahav cookbook to go with our left over home made pitas. The hummus from this recipe is one to make again and again. The zahav cookbook and the soom tahini featured in this post do deserve a post of their own and we will soon write in more detail about them.

Sabich

---

★ 5 Stars ☆ ★ 4 Stars ☆ ★ 3 Stars ☆ ★ 2 Stars ☆ ★ 1 Star ☆

No reviews

• Author: BreakingNaan
• Total Time: 1 hour 30 mins
• Yield: Serves 4

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

Description

Sabich is a sandwich with pocket pita bread stuffed with fried eggplant, boiled eggs, salad, tahini sauce and amba sauce

---

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• For the 4 pitas (recipe scaled from zahav cookbook)
• 1.5 tsp instant dry yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 0.75 cup water
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup bread flour
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• For the fried eggplant
• 1 Large eggplant sliced into thick slices
• oil for drizzling
• 1 tsp turmeric
• salt to taste
• 4 boiled eggs
• For the fresh pickled cabbage:
• 1 cup thinly shaved cabbage
• 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
• For the cucumber- tomato dressing:
• 1 large tomato chopped
• 1 medium cucumber chopped
• 1 tsp dill
• 1 tsp mint
• 2 tsp olive oil
• salt to taste
• For the Tahini Dressing:
• 0.5 cup tahini
• juice of 0.5 lime
• 2 garlic pods
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp ice water
• For the Amba dressing
• 0.5 cup Amba pickle
• salt to taste

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

---

Instructions

1. For the 4 pitas (recipe scaled from zahav cookbook):
2. Mix yeast sugar and 0.25 cup water and set aside for 10 minutes till the mixture foams almost like a cappuccino. Wait a few minutes more if needed.
3. in a stand mixer mix the all purpose flour, bread flour and salt.
4. Add the yeast mixture and another quarter cup water alongwith the olive oil and mix with the kneading attachment till a ball starts to form. If requred add a little bit of water in small increments.
5. Then add upto about 0.25 cup water and mix till a tacky but non sticky dough forms. The water needed might vary.
6. Let this rest for 1 hour
7. Pre-heat oven to 550 F with an inverted sheet pan in the middle rack of the oven
8. Make four portions of dough and pinch each of them from under to stretch the srface of the portions and make a ball so that the dough rises again
9. Set aside for 10 mins
10. shape the ball into a round pit using hands squeezing out between fingers radially and then tossing it in hands to stretch if needed
11. place dough on a pizza peel or another sheet pan and slide onto the one in oven
12. Bake for 3 minutes, you can see it puff up
13. Bake the other 3 pitas
14. For the fried eggplant:
15. drizzle olive oil over slices and shallow fry them over medium heat in a big pan. If required do this in batches
16. while grilling sprinkle salt and turmeric and you will end up with some turmeric oil and coloring on the slices in the pan
17. Cook on both sides so they are carmelized and cooked through
18. For the fresh pickled cabbage:
19. add water to submerge the shaved cabbage and stir in vinegar and some salt. Set aside for one hour and later in refrigerator till used. Strain before using.
20. For the cucumber- tomato dressing:
21. Mix all ingedients and add salt to taste
22. For the Tahini Dressing:
23. puree garlic with lemon juice. Set aside for 10 minutes.
24. Strain the puree toadd juice to tahini and whip while adding ice water to loosen the dressing a few spoons at a time till required consistency is obtained. Adjust the salt after tasting.
25. For the amba dressing puree the amba pickle and adjust the salt
26. Cut open the pita and add the two dressings, some cabbage leaves, eggplant slices, boiled egg slices, salad and repeat in layers. Finish in the end with tahini dressing and amba dressing

• Prep Time: 60 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins
• Category: Entree
• Cuisine: Middle Eastern