Sabich
Pitta stuffed with fried aubergine, boiled egg, hummus, salad, pickles, amba and a great deal of tahini. Iraqi-Jewish, and now Tel Aviv's other sandwich.
Photograph credit: Liat Portal for Foodie Disorder - Open sabich (personal variation) by HaJunkiyada · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Photograph credit: Ovad's Sabich place by Laliv g · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
How to Make Sabich
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Lay the aubergine slices on a rack, salt both sides, and leave 30 minutes. Beads of water will appear.
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Pat them completely dry with kitchen paper.
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Boil the eggs for 9 minutes for a just-set yolk, cool in iced water and peel. For the traditional slow-cooked version, simmer them for 2 hours in water with onion skins and a spoonful of tea until the whites turn beige.
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Heat 1 cm of oil in a frying pan and fry the aubergine in batches, 3 minutes a side, until deep golden and completely soft. Drain on a rack.
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Toss the salad ingredients together with the lemon juice and olive oil, and season.
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Warm the pittas and cut them open along one edge, opening them into a wide pocket.
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Spread hummus generously inside first, right up the sides.
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Add the fried aubergine, then slices of egg, then the salad, then the pickles.
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Pour tahini sauce and amba over the filling, add zhoug if you like heat, and eat immediately over a plate.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Tips for Making Sabich
- Salt and dry the aubergine. Wet slices absorb twice the oil.
- Hummus against the bread. It stops the pitta going through.
- Amba is what makes it sabich rather than a vegetable pitta.
Serving Suggestions
- Pickled cucumbers and zhoug
- A cold beer
- Mint lemonade
Storing & Reheating Sabich
Fry the aubergine up to 2 days ahead and keep refrigerated. Assemble to order.
Sabich: Questions and Answers
How long does Sabich take to make?
25 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of salting, so allow 1 hour 10 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 4.
Sabich Nutrition Facts
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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