Malooga

Malooga (Arabic: ملوجة‎) is a Yemeni flatbread eaten with bean dishes, scrambled eggs, spiced buttermilk, and many other Yemeni savory dishes.

Preparation

Malooga dough is made very much like pizza dough with water, yeast, salt, and flour. It is kneaded very well and set to rise for an hour. It is cut to large rounds. Each round is then stretched, and warm ghee is spread over the stretched dough, it is folded over and more ghee is applied, and this process is repeated 1-3 times. All sides are pinched together to form a neat ball. After a few minutes of sitting, the round is stretched into a flat circular shape and placed on a makhbaza that is used in placing the dough on the wall of a hot taboon much like the tandoor. It is then glazed with an egg-wash, ghee, or buttermilk and baked until the bottom is brown and with some browning on top.

Malooga has historically been a very cheap foodsource for most poor and famished Yemeni people. However, due to the rapidly increasing cost of yeast and flour, the cost of Malooga has skyrocketed over 150% since 2004. In fact, the average cost of a single Malooga is now expected to rise to 3 rials (0.15 USD) by the end of 2008.