If you are having breakfast in Uzbekistan, you would probably be eating Charles’ scarab pasta but in Morocco you would feast on melwi, an amazing multi-layered bread which is a kind of mille-feuille in that the dough is layered with fat except that the technique is very different. And here, in black & white pictures, is how Bushra, who I worked with in Marrakesh, makes Melwi.
Once she’s made her dough and divided it, She flattens it in a somewhat rectangular shape.
Then she smears it with butter
And drizzles vegetable oil over it.
She stretches it a little.
Then she rolls the flattened dough into a fat roll.
She picks up the roll of dough and with her fingers, presses into both ends to make a hole in the middle and scrunch up the roll.
She turns her scrunched up roll
and stretches the opening to make a wide ring
which she flattens using a little more vegetable oil.
And finally she bakes the bread in a hot pan. When it is done, she picks it up as in the top picture – she has asbestos hands – and presses slightly on the edges to separate the layers. Et voilà, melwi for breakfast with more butter and good honey, my absolute favourite when I am there! I will make it in the next week or so and will post both the recipe and pictures of my effort hoping it will be successful.
