Scratch that itch…
I was in an ambitious mood yesterday I wanted to make something that no one has ever heard of before..well some of you. I also wanted to make everything from scratch I mean everything.
So I made Sabich let me tell you what it is…
If you ever had a pita sandwich it something like it…yet nothing like it.
It’s Israeli street food but more about that in a minute.
It contains 3 ingredients that make it special the fried eggplant, boiled eggs, and Amba! When was the last time you had Amba and a hard-boiled egg in your pita sandwich? Like never?
Amba is like a mango chutney but better and can be spicy it sounds crazy but this is what pulls all the flavors together.
Sabich can probably be found here in NYC but I am sure not in many places and will be hard to find.
how did this concoction come from? While culinary exchanges and fusion of dishes have been happening for thousands of years this Sabich happened in the ’40s and 50’s when Iraqi Jews were migrating back to Israel they brought back this dish.
The sabich was created for the sabbath since the sabbath is a no-work day which also means no cooking they made the Sabich the day before and ate it on the sabbath cold.
Now amba some say was created in the 19th century by an Iraqi Jew family Sassoon of Bombay and brought it with them to Israel.
Israel amba tends to use green mangos.
The Iraqi amba is spicier.
Indian chutney is sweeter or more pickled.
According to 196flavors website…
As with most foods there different “ Popular etymology theory suggests that the word sabich comes from the Arabic word صباح, pronounced sabah, which means “morning” since most of the ingredients in sabich are typical of an Iraqi Jewish breakfast.
Another possible origin proposes that sabich is an acronym of the hebrew words salat, beitsa, yotèr hasil, or סלט ביצהיותר חציל, which mean “salad, eggs, (with) plus eggplants”.
But the most likely hypothesis would be the one of a man, an Iraqi Jew, born in Baghdad, named Sabich. Indeed, sabich has the same name as the founder of the first sabich stand in Israel, Sabich Tsvi Halabi.”
So Since I have never been to Israel or Baghdad…I had to studied up on this dish..and the only way to get it right is to make everything from scratch to get the most authentic taste and flavor.
We made the pita which took about 2 hours.
hard boiled eggs cooled and peeled 30 minutes.
Eggplant 2 hours to remove excess water.
Amba 20 minutes.
Israelí salad 6 minutes prep 1 hour marinating.
We were going to also make tahini dressing from scratch but I did not have enough sesame seeds.
So tahini from sesame paste 5 minutes.

Making Pita bread from scratch.

While each process is not a big deal when you put them all together then it’s timing, cleaning cooking in different pots and pans.
So I am not going to put the recipe up now I will save that for my blog site but there are recipes online for pita and amba And the rest of the parts for this dish.
Ok let me say this I love falafels in pita from the best places… but this is better!
With the egg eggplant and Amba combo it really works and it’s vegan! It is a very satisfying delicious sandwich The pita was great there is a big difference between store-bought and homemade pita 🥙
The Amba I really had reservations about it on eggs and eggplant but once I tried it..that reservation changed to a must-have it.