I made Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi’s recipe for Dukkah. WOW! it’s really delicious!….You might be wondering what is Dukkah? Dukkah also spelled Duqqa and is an Egyptian blend of nuts, seeds and spices that are toasted and ground….but not to powder and not to paste…somewhere in-between. I only had Dukka a few times at FnB restaurant in Scottsdale and it might have been served on a vegetable?……. Or maybe not but I think that’s how I had it so I thought I’d make dukkah and put it on a vegetable too………..I read about 20 different recipes for dukkah and they differed so much that they didn’t even seem like the same thing. Some recipes were very short. Others were long. Most on the internet are pistachio based but I read the real thing is usually hazelnut based. I narrowed the recipes down to two that seemed like they’d be the best…..and went with the Y.O & S.T. recipe because they are award wining and this recipe was hazelnut based. After I made the Dukkah I didn’t want to put it on a vegetable because of the taste. It was delicious but it didn’t seem like it was for the vegetables I had around. The dukkah was very flavorful and very fragrant, sort of nutty, a little sweet and slightly spicy, maybe a little spice cookie-ish – peanut-ee like but yummier. My first thought was to bake it into cookies. I thought the dukkah would be great in either butter or peanut butter cookies but I didn’t want to eat cookies this week so I baked it up in bread so I can eat some and freeze some………guess I could have froze cookies too…oh well. I do also think the dukkah would be great to flavor chicken. I latter read that dukkah is suppose to be served with bread and oil……..You dunk your oiled bread in Dukkah to make it tastier……..I can see that now………This dukkah is quite delicious I don’t know if most other dukkahs are this good? You can purchase dukkah at the store these days or follow one of the more simple recipes for dukkah but your results will differ. The bread recipe is very easy. I just made a basic dough. Rolled it out. filled it and rolled it up like a jelly roll. Cut the jelly roll in half long ways. braided it around and in the oven it went on a quilon lined baking sheet.

Ingredients for around 14 servings

1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons or 1/4 oz)

1 1/2 Tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 cups potato water at 100-110 degrees F or water

4 cups bread flour

1/4 cup scant extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons course sea salt (you might need 3 teaspoons if you use water instead of potato water..)

1 cup bread flour – this is for kneading, letting the dough rest in and for flouring surfaces

2 oz sweet butter – room temperature

dukkah recipe – the whole thing – I will post the ingredients after the recipe at the end of the page if you want to make Dukkah based on Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi’s recipe

4 oz feta – the creamy, not so salty or too tangy type……or use goat cheese – crumbled

1 Tablespoon barberries – if you don’t have skip – nothing will be similar

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil for drizzling over the top of the bread

Directions

Set oven to 400 degrees F.

In a big bowl add the yeast, sugar and potato water and wait maybe 30 minutes for a foam to develop.

Now add 4 cups bread flour, 1/4 c olive oil, sea salt and mix well and make it into a ball. Add another cup of bread flour to let the ball rest in and knead some of that into the ball so it doesn’t feel sticky.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rest till doubled.

Punch down and knead a bit more. Flour surfaces. You can roll out the dough into a something like a 23 inch by 16 inch rectangle and spread the butter on it.

Top the butter with the dukkah, feta cheese and barberries.

Then roll it up like a jelly roll.

 

Split roll in half.

Braid and put ends together.

Drizzle with oil.

After 15 minutes  turn pan around so it browns evenly.

Bread might be done 10-15 minutes later for a total of around 25-30 minutes.

Dig in!

Most people will enjoy this! Ummm it’s like a sophisticated Entenmann’s Cake.

I used Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi’s Recipe for Dukkah…..I didn’t mean to but I changed their recipe JUST SLIGHTLY due to what I found in my kitchen. This is how I made their recipe. If you use the Dukkah to bake with like I did then I wouldn’t bother toasting everything or the Dukkah might get burnt. I think baking it is enough.

1/2 cup hazelnuts

2 Tablespoons sunflower seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon cumin (not in Y.T. & S.T. recipe)

1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (instead of the cumin the recipe should be 1 Tablespoon of cumin seeds but I couldn’t find them at first so I did a teaspoon cumin and later when I found my cumin seeds I just added 1/2 of what the recipe to make up for the cumin I added)

1 Tablespoon green peppercorn or substitute white peppercorn (I used white)

3 Tablespoons coriander seeds

1 1/2 Tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 teaspoon nigela seeds (I know I have them but couldn’t find so I used caraway seeds)

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Basically everything gets toasted and then gets ground up till course. ENJOY!