Sabich

About This Recipe

Sabich is the breakfast that Iraqi Jews brought to Israel in the 1950s — a pita pocket layered like a small architectural wonder: smooth hummus, slabs of golden fried eggplant, an entire hard-boiled egg sliced thinly (specifically a haminado, simmered overnight in tea), Israeli salad of cucumber-tomato, tahini, chopped parsley, amba (a fermented mango sauce that's the soul of the dish), and a fiery spoon of zhug. The result is creamy, smoky, tangy, hot, fresh, and rich all at once — every bite different from the last. Originally a Saturday-morning post-synagogue meal, sabich is now a Tel Aviv street-food star sold from tiny one-counter pita shops where the line is always twelve people deep.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 2 largeglobe eggplants, sliced 1 cm thick
• fine salt for salting
• neutral oil for frying
• 4 largeeggs, soft-boiled or haminado (long-cooked Iraqi eggs)
• 4 largefresh pita breads (or laffa)
• 200 ggood-quality hummus
• 5 tbsptahini sauce (thinned with lemon and water)
• 2 largetomatoes, finely diced
• 2Persian cucumbers, finely diced
• 1 smallred onion, finely chopped
• 1 small bunchflat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1lemon, juiced
• 2 tbspolive oil
• 4 tbspamba (Iraqi pickled mango sauce)
• 2 tbspzhug (Yemeni green chili sauce)
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the eggplant

   Layer eggplant slices in a colander with salt between each. Weight with a plate and let drain 30 minutes; this softens the flesh and improves frying texture.

2. 2

   Make haminado eggs (optional but classic)

   Place eggs in a pot covered with water plus a tablespoon of black tea leaves, a peeled onion skin, and a pinch of salt. Simmer the gentlest possible heat for 4–6 hours (or overnight on the lowest setting). The whites turn beige; the yolks become silky. Otherwise, hard-boil eggs for 8 minutes and slice.

3. 3

   Make Israeli salad

   Toss tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and parsley with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Taste and brighten — should be sharp and fresh.

4. 4

   Pat and fry the eggplant

   Press eggplant slices between paper towels to dry. Heat 1 cm oil in a wide skillet. Fry slices in batches until deeply golden brown and creamy inside, about 3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels.

5. 5

   Warm pita and split

   Wrap pitas in foil and warm in a 180°C oven for 5 minutes. Slice off the top quarter of each and pry open into a pocket.

6. 6

   Layer the sabich

   Smear the inside of each pita generously with hummus, all the way to the bottom. Add 3 slices of eggplant. Pile in a slotted spoon of Israeli salad. Lay slices of egg along the top. Drizzle heavily with tahini. Spoon over amba and a streak of zhug.

7. 7

   Finish

   Tuck in a final sprig of parsley. Wrap the base of each pita in paper towel or parchment — the eat is enthusiastic and amba will drip.

Variations

• •

  Sabich with fried potatoes added (Iraqi version).

• •

  Sabich bowl: serve over rice with all the toppings, no pita.

• •

  Replace zhug with skhug rosso (red zhug) for a sweeter, slightly milder finish.

Storage

Components keep separately 3 days refrigerated — assemble fresh. Assembled sabich does not keep; the pita disintegrates within an hour.

Frequently Asked Questions