This weekend, I would like to introduce one of the ultimate Israeli dishes – the Sabich!
If you’ve ever been to Israel, you’ve probably tasted this divine sandwich, consisting of pita bread stuffed with fried eggplant, hard boiled eggs, hummus, tahini, Israeli salad, boiled potatoes (in some versions), parsley and amba. Traditionally it is made with haminados eggs, slow-cooked in Hamin until they turn brown. Sometimes it is doused with hot sauce and sprinkled with minced onion. . Not everyone likes it, but it’s a must-try for every Israeli.
It originates in the Iraqi Jews who ate it on Shabbat morning and brought this tradition with them to Israel, in the 1940’s and 1950’s. On Shabbat, when no cooking is allowed in Judaism, Iraqi Jews ate a cold meal of precooked fried eggplant, boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. In Israel, these ingredients were stuffed in a pita and sold as fast food. In the 1950s and 1960s, vendors began to sell the sandwich in open-air stalls.
More about the magic of the sabich in this video: