Barbari bread

The department I work in on campus has a lot of international people. Many of them are from Iran, as is one of my coworkers.

When we have lunches, she often brings barbari bread, and shares it with me as well.

For those who aren't sure what barbari bread is, it's a popular Iranian flatbread often served with a cheese similar to feta.

I've always found barbari bread very interesting, because of how it rips straight, as if the proteins have aligned themselves, for a perfect rip every time.

A few weeks ago, I told my coworker that I was going to try to make it on the weekend. Unfortunately, I never got around to making it, and I let her know it on that following Monday. Funny enough, her and a friend has gone into the city that weekend and picked up the fresh dough from the Iranian store for me. So I brought that home and baked the dough.

Although it was nice of them to buy me the dough, I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do with it. Bread requires rising time, and I wasn't sure if the pre-made dough had already gone through the rising stage or not.

I did a bit of research on baking temperatures and times, and decided to go with 375F for 25 minutes.

The pre-made dough was actually two balls (that melded into one big dough ball in my backpack). I separated them and made two pieces of bread on my sprayed cookie sheet.

I punched the dough down and stretched it out to fill the pan. After, I ran my fingers vertically along the bread to form the straight edge ridges that the bread seemingly perfectly rips along. With a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top, I popped those into the oven.

I forgot to get a before and after pictures of both of my flatbreads, so I pieced together a before of one and an after of the other.

I'm going to try to make the barbari bread again, because I want to try to make the dough myself. The issue with the pre-made dough was that I wasn't sure what stage the dough was at, and it didn't turn out quite the way I thought.

Although it wasn't quite the same as the bread my coworker brings in for lunch, it was still good to eat. I cut a few pieces out (as they didn't rip along the lines), and had them with my chickpea curry.