Kleicha

Ingredients

• Flour600 g
• Ghee250 g
• Milk — warm150 ml
• Dry yeast5 g
• Date paste500 g
• Ground cardamom2 tsp
• Mahlab1 tsp
• Ground fennel1 tsp
• Nigella seeds1 tsp
• Egg yolk — for glazing1
• Sesame seeds30 g
• Salt1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and leave it ten minutes, until it foams.

   12 min

2. 2

   Rub the flour with the melted ghee, mahlab, fennel, nigella and salt.

   10 min

3. 3

   Add the yeast mixture and knead a soft dough, working it ten minutes.

   14 min

4. 4

   Cover it and rest it an hour at room temperature.

   62 min

5. 5

   Work the date paste with a spoon of ghee and the cardamom until pliable.

   10 min

6. 6

   Roll the dough into a rectangle, spread the paste in a thin layer and roll it into a tight log.

   15 min

7. 7

   Cut the log into centimetre slices, brush them with yolk, scatter with sesame and bake at 180 °C for twenty minutes.

   28 min

About the dish

Kleicha is regarded as Iraq's national biscuit and descends from ancient Mesopotamia: similar items are described on Sumerian tablets. It is one of the oldest known biscuits.

The date paste is worked with ghee until pliable. A dry paste tears the dough as it is rolled and the log falls into slices with no filling in them.

Mahlab — ground wild cherry kernels — goes into the dough and gives an almond-cherry note nothing replaces. Without it kleicha becomes an ordinary date biscuit.

Worth knowing

• — The biscuits should not brown much. Kleicha stays pale, and a golden crust means the dough is overbaked.
• — Roll the date paste between two sheets of parchment. It then lays in an even layer and will not tear the dough.
• — Kleicha is baked for Eid al-Fitr, and Iraqi households make it by the bucketful. It keeps a month in a tin.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

6 g

Fat

20 g

Carbs

56 g

More from Iraq

• Masgouf — River fish butterflied and cooked standing beside an open fire. A Baghdad dish from the banks of the Tigris.
• Iraqi dolma — Vine leaves and vegetables stuffed with spiced rice and meat, layered in one pot and cooked under a weight.
• Iraqi biryani — Rice with chicken, vermicelli, nuts and raisins, every component cooked separately.