persianbread
Nan-e Barbari
Persian flatbread with sesame seeds and golden glaze — the iconic Iranian breakfast bread.
Prep
30 min
Cook
15 min
Servings
6
Difficulty
Medium
4.9
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Persian flatbread with sesame seeds and golden glaze — the iconic Iranian breakfast bread.
Nan-e Barbari is the bread of Iranian mornings — a long, canoe-shaped flatbread with deep finger-pressed furrows, a burnished crust, and an open, chewy crumb. Its secret is roomal, a quickly cooked slurry of flour, oil, and baking soda brushed over the dough before baking, which browns into the bread's signature glossy, faintly sweet sheen and keeps the crust tender. Topped with sesame and nigella seeds and baked at ferocious heat, barbari is one of the four great breads of Iran alongside sangak, lavash, and taftoon. Bought hot from the neighborhood nanvai and rushed home, it is inseparable from the classic breakfast of feta-like panir, butter, honey, and sweet tea.
Serves 6
Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt together, then add the warm water and oil and mix into a shaggy dough. Knead 10 minutes by hand or 6 by mixer until smooth, supple, and slightly tacky — a soft dough gives barbari its open crumb. Cover and rise 1 hour until doubled.
Resist adding extra flour; a slightly sticky dough bakes into a far lighter bread than a stiff one.
Whisk the glaze flour, oil, and baking soda into the half cup of water in a small pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 2–3 minutes until it thickens to a thin, pourable paste. Set aside to cool — this roomal is what gives barbari its glossy golden crust.
Divide the dough in two and place each piece on an oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet. With oiled hands, gently press and stretch each into a long oval about 30x15cm, working from the center outward without degassing the edges. Cover loosely and rest 20 minutes until puffy.
Dip your fingertips in the roomal and press deep parallel furrows down the length of each oval, pushing nearly to the pan — these channels give barbari its ribbed identity and help it bake evenly. Brush the entire surface generously with roomal and scatter the sesame and nigella seeds over the top.
Press the furrows firmly and deeply; shallow grooves puff out and vanish in the oven's heat.
Bake on a preheated stone or steel, or a hot inverted baking sheet, at your oven's maximum temperature (240°C or above) for 12–15 minutes until dramatically puffed along the ridges and deeply golden. Cool just minutes under a cloth — barbari is meant to be eaten warm, torn by hand.
Preheat the oven a full 30 minutes; stored heat in the stone is what blisters and browns the crust properly.
The hotter the oven, the better the bread — preheat a baking stone or steel for a full 30 minutes.
The roomal glaze is what makes barbari barbari; don't skip it or substitute egg wash.
Keep the dough soft and slightly tacky for an open, chewy crumb.
Press the signature furrows deep, almost to the pan, or they disappear as the bread puffs.
Eat it warm within hours — like all Persian breads, barbari is at its peak fresh from the oven.
Top with poppy seeds or a mix of all three seeds instead of just sesame and nigella.
Substitute up to a quarter whole-wheat flour for a nuttier, more rustic loaf.
Shape into smaller individual ovals for personal breakfast barbari.
Bake directly on a screaming-hot pizza stone with steam for a crustier, bakery-style finish.
Best eaten the day it's baked, ideally warm. Wrap leftovers in a towel at room temperature for a day, refreshing in a hot oven for 3–4 minutes; or freeze baked loaves and reheat from frozen for 5 minutes at 200°C.
Barbari takes its name from the old Persian term for the Hazara people of the eastern frontier, who are credited with bringing the bread to Tehran in the 19th century during the Qajar era; in parts of Iran it is also called nan-e Tabrizi. It rose to become arguably the country's most consumed breakfast bread, pulled in long golden planks from neighborhood bakery ovens every dawn. Among Iran's four canonical breads, barbari is the thick, chewy one — the morning companion to panir, walnuts, and sweet tea.
Yes — barbari freezes exceptionally well. Cool the baked loaves fully, wrap tightly, and freeze up to 2 months. Reheat directly from frozen in a 200°C oven for about 5 minutes; the crust re-crisps and the crumb softens almost to fresh-baked. Avoid the microwave, which turns it rubbery.
Roomal is a brief-cooked slurry of flour, water, oil, and baking soda brushed on before baking. The alkaline starch paste browns rapidly in the oven, creating barbari's glossy, deeply golden crust while keeping it tender — the same principle as the lye on pretzels. Skipping it produces a pale, dull, distinctly non-barbari loaf.
Above all at breakfast: torn into pieces and eaten with panir (brined white cheese), butter, honey or sour cherry jam, walnuts, fresh herbs, and endless glasses of sweet black tea. It also accompanies haleem, kebabs, and soft-boiled eggs. The ritual of fetching it hot from the bakery is half the pleasure.
The furrows were pressed too shallowly or the dough was over-proofed and too gassy to hold them. Press your fingertips firmly down almost to the baking sheet along each line, and bake soon after scoring. A very hot oven also sets the ridges quickly before they can inflate and merge.
Per serving (120g / 4.2 oz) · 6 servings total
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