How I loved waking up on a Saturday morning, to the smell of freshly made Jachnun.

Jachnun (ג’חנון) is a Yemenite dish that’s usually made on a Saturday as it needs to spend 10 hours on a Shabbat Plate or in the oven. It is made of mostly flour and even though it’s not too hard to make, it requires a lot of physical strength 🙂

It’s served with grated tomatoes, hard boiled eggs and “zchug” (the spicy paste).

Anyways, it’s one of my favorite dishes for a Saturday morning or brunch and I love having it with the whole family, however since we moved to Canada I wasn’t successful in finding it here, so after 3 years of not eating it I finally decided to make it. My arms really hurt afterwards but it was worth it because it was so good!

Here’s a great recipe I’ve found on FoodsDictionary

Ingredients: (yields 12 pieces – depends on size)

1 Kg all purpose flour

½ tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

25 grams honey

2 tsp baking powder

2.5 cups water you may need more)

Butter – softened (for spreading on the dough) – Originally you need margarine but butter’s healthier so I replaced it.

1 steel pot (pot and lid made of steel) with bread slices covering the bottom and parchment paper on top of the bread so the Jachnun will not stick to the bread.

Directions:

***Preheat oven to 100C (210F)***

1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder together.

2. Add the honey and 1 cup water and stir well.

3. The dough has to be soft and not sticky so you want to add the rest of the water and knead until it is soft and doesn’t stick to your hands.

4. Divide the prepared dough into egg size balls.

5. Flatten each ball as thin as you can (almost paper thin) into a rectangle shape.

6. Spread softened butter on the flat dough with your hands. You basically want the whole piece to be covered with a nice layer of butter.

7. Fold 1/3 of the rectangle to the center and then fold another 1/3 (from the other end) into the center. So what you have now is a rectangle flat dough where the 2 thirds meet in the center.

8. Start rolling the dough while pulling it towards yourself, until you form a roll of dough.

9. Place the roll in the pot.

10. After done rolling the dough balls and placing them one on top of the other, place the lid on the pot and place into preheated oven for 10 hours.

 ***You can either boil eggs separately to serve with the Jachnun or you can wrap eggs in aluminum foil (each) and place in the pot along with the dough rolls***

And here’s a video from that wonderful website to illustrate how it’s done: