How to make Barbari (Iranian Flatbread)

Barbari is a famous type of Iranian flatbread. The name used to refer to the group of people who first came up with this bread. The bread was then taken to Tehran (capital) where it first became popular to the public. This is a short simple recipe of how you can make your own Barbari bread:

Ingredients:

- ¾ cups of warm water

- 4 teaspoons of olive oil (or any)

- ½ teaspoons of instant yeast

- 1 teaspoon of salt

- 1 tablespoon of sugar

- 10 ½ ounces of bread flour

Directions:

Mix your sugar with the warm water and add instant yeast. After 2-3 minutes the mixture should start rising. In a separate container mix the bread flour with salt and add olive oil. Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture and mix it well into the dough and the dough needs to be kneaded for 10 minutes. Let the dough sit aside for an hour and rest until it doubles in size. After the bread rested for an hour, divide up the dough into 3-4 portions.

Using a rolling pin flatten out the dough to about ¼ inch thickness. Let it rest for another 20 minutes. While waiting, pre-heat the oven to 400°F.

In order for the bread to bake better, add some straight cuts to the dough just as demonstrated in the picture. This prevents the middle of the bread from getting too soft at the end.

Last step before you put the dough into the oven is to spray some water on top of it. You can also sprinkle some sesame seeds for more flavor.

Now it is time to insert the dough into the oven. Depending on the accuracy of your oven you'll need to let the bread bake for between 17-20 minutes. Keep monitoring the baking process so you don't accidentally over bake the bread. The final results should look something like this:

Enjoy!