That Translator Can Cook: Mutabbaq

Paper-thin pastry folded around eggs, ground beef, onions, leeks, tomatoes, and cheese.

Image Source: YouTube

 I’ve never had this delicious street food, but I’m more than willing to try it. While this pastry may seem simple, the simplest dishes can be the tastiest. Plus, this type of recipe is very flexible: you can take out the meat so it’s vegetarian, you can take out the meat and cheese so it’s vegan, or you can play around with different spices.

Mutabar (muta meaning ‘egg’ and bar meaning ‘roti’) is the original name of this dish, but I’m not quite sure which language it is. If I had to guess, I would guess it’s a dialect spoken in southwest India. Muttabaq means “folded” in Arabic, and if you read the recipe’s instructions below, you’ll know why. It also goes by the name “martabak”, but I’m not sure where it came from. Now, there are two opposing stories of where mutabbaq came from:

1. Muttabaq was created in the state of Kerala in India and was brought to Saudi Arabia and Yemen by Indian merchants, who also brought the dish to Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, etc.).

2. Muttabaq was created in Saudi Arabia, specifically the Hejaz region, or Yemen, and was brought back to India and the rest of Southeast Asia by Indian merchants.

Sources from both Southwest and Southeast Asia are not consistent in these claims: some Southeast Asian sources claim mutabbaq originated in India, some claim it originated in Saudi Arabia, and the same is true for Southwest Asian sources. I think either could be true, but I am personally leaning toward the first theory because I know of the Indian influences on Saudi and Yemeni cuisine but not vice versa. One source backs up my speculation: “There are similar versions of the bread in places such as Yemen and other regions of the Arabic world and Persia. All of these places in the Middle East were visited by Indian traders centuries ago and it would not be unusual for them to have learned from each other or to have adopted each other's culinary habits and practices.”

I’ve always been interested in the cultural exchanges that came from the ancient spice trade, even though the profits of the spice trade sparked the expansion of European colonialism. You may not think that a little thing like cinnamon or pepper could motivate countries to go to war, but it’s not as crazy as you would think after learning about Darwinian gastronomy. This concept was created in a fascinating publication about why people use spices:

• Spices contain “secondary compounds” (phytochemicals) that are the plants’ ‘recipes for survival’: these compounds give the spices their taste and flavor but also have antimicrobial properties.

• Most dishes (93%) contain at least 1 spice. Some didn’t use any spices and some used 12 spices: on average, a dish contained 2-5 spices.

• Black pepper and onion were the most frequently used spices, followed by garlic, chilis, lemon/lime juice, parsley, ginger, and bay leaf.

• The authors made the following predictions based on this hypothesis: “If spices were to kill such microorganisms or inhibit their growth before they could produce toxins, use of spices might reduce foodborne illnesses and food poisoning”

  • “Spices should exhibit antibacterial and antifungal activity.”

  • “Use of spices should be greatest in hot climates, where unrefrigerated foods spoil especially quickly.”

  • “A greater proportion of bacteria should be inhibited by recipes from hot climates than from cool climates.”

  • “Within a country, cuisine from high latitudes and elevations (i.e., cooler climates) should contain fewer and less potent spices than cuisine from lower latitudes and elevations.”

  • “Quantities of spices called for in recipes should be sufficient to produce antimicrobial effects, and cooking should not destroy the potency of phytochemicals.”

    • Cookbooks were used to analyze patterns of spice use and are records of how people have fought against foodborne illnesses

P.S. Cookbooks are also used to analyze food acceptance and acculturation, so if anyone needs to translate an Arabic cookbook into English, I’m your girl. I would love to work on a project where cookbooks are being analyzed for a gastronomy study.

Before we get into the recipe, one tip I’ve found when researching this dish is that you should slap the dough a bit to make it very thin. Here is a video to show you how:

Here is how to make this tasty pastry (recipe belongs to Sally Abdel Rahim [سالي عبد الرحيم])!

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour

• 1 cup of warm water for the dough

• 1 large egg

• A dash of salt

• 1 tablespoon of oil

Filling:

• 5 eggs

• 0.25 kilo of ground meat

• 1 medium onion, diced

• 3 tomatoes, diced

• 1 cup of chopped leeks

• 1 teaspoon of salt

• 1 teaspoon of black pepper

• Mozzarella cheese to add creaminess to the filling

Steps

1. Mix the dough ingredients well, knead it, and cut it into 6 balls. Let them rest for a half an hour.

2. Prep the filling in a nonstick pan. Add the oil and onion and sauté the onion a bit. Then, add the meat and stir until it browns. Next, add the tomatoes and stir; then add the spices and leeks. Finally, add the eggs and stir until the eggs are completely cooked.

3. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin on a surface that is lightly greased with oil. Roll it out in a very thin rectangle and fold the edges. Place the filling in the middle and fold the remaining dough over the filling.

4. Brush a bit of oil on saj bread and toast the mutabbaq on both sides on medium heat.

5. Garnish with lemon slices and bon appetit!

Discussion

I don’t really have any linguistic comments, so we’ll just talk about food!

1. I’m thinking about using a mild curry powder or seven-spice blend in the filling, what spices would/do you use?

2. I’ve seen other recipes save the eggs for the end: they’re left raw in the filling and are cooked when you toast the mutabbaq. Which way is more common, and which way do you prefer?