Sabich
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| Course | Breakfast (among Iraqi Jews) and Street food (entire country), Sandwich |
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| Place of origin | Israel |
| Main ingredients | pita, eggplant, hard boiled eggs, Israeli salad, amba, parsley, tahini sauce, and hummus |
| Ingredients generally used | potato, onion, and zhug |
 Cookbook: Sabich  Media: Sabich |
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Sabich or sabih (Hebrew: סביח [saˈbiħ]) is a traditional Mizrahi Jewish sandwich popular mostly in Israel which consists of pita stuffed with fried eggplant and hard boiled eggs. Local Israeli consumption is said to have stemmed from a tradition among Iraqi Jews, who ate it on Shabbat morning.[1]
Etymology[edit]
One theory is that Sabich comes from the Arabic word صباح [sˤaˈbaːħ], which means "morning", as the ingredients in the sabich are typical for an Iraqi Jewish breakfast.[2]
Another theory is that the food is named for the founder of the first sabich stand in Israel, Sabich Tsvi Halabi, a Jewish man born in Iraq.
The name was formed into a backronym: סבי"ח, for Salad (סלט), egg (ביצה), and more (יותר), eggplant (חציל).
Ingredients[edit]
Sabich, served in pita bread, traditionally contains fried eggplant slices, hard-cooked eggs, a thin tahini sauce (tahini, lemon juice, and garlic), Israeli salad, chopped parsley, and amba. Some versions use boiled potatoes. Traditionally it is made with haminados eggs, slow-cooked in Hamin until they turn brown. According to the diner's preference it can be served topped with green or red zhug as a condiment and sprinkled with minced onion.
History[edit]
Sabich was brought to Israel by Iraqi Jews who moved in the 1940s and 1950s. On the Sabbath, when no cooking is allowed, Iraqi Jews ate a cold meal of precooked fried eggplant, boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. In Israel, these ingredients were stuffed in a pita and sold as fast food. In the 1950s and 1960s, vendors began to sell the sandwich in open-air stalls.[3][verification needed] It has a rural version called Sabich salad (Salat Sabich in Hebrew)
Gallery[edit]
See also[edit]
- Cuisine of the Mizrahi Jews
- Israeli cuisine
- Jewish cuisine
- Culture of Israel
- Middle Eastern cuisine
- Sabich salad
