Walibakh
recipe by Umm Ramy
Walibakh is one of the traditional Circassian breads I have been hoping to document for quite a while. It is actually from the Qushha region of the Caucasus, but we kind of adopted it. As you can see below, it was not an easy task. Apparently, the only thing more time consuming than making walibakh, is writing out the recipe and photographing the process. If you have several hours on your hands, it is well worth the effort. We made the more traditional potato and cheese filled varieties, but it has also been known to be stuffed with meat or spinach.
I should warn you that my mother does not feel it is worth it to make any dough using less than 5 pounds of flour. If you do not need to make enough for a whole village, feel free to divide this recipe in half...that way you can use your electric mixer with a dough hook instead of kneading by hand. Plus, leftovers freeze nicely for up to 6 months.
Dough Ingredients
5 pounds all-purpose, unbleached flour
2 cans (24 ounces) evaporated milk, warmed
1 1/2 cups milk, warmed
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1 cup water, warmed
1 cup vegetable oil, plus some for work surface
2 packages dry active yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup Mazola oil (for pan frying)
Filling Ingredients
4-5 pound round Touma/Chicago/Syrian white basket cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 15-ounce container ricotta cheese
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
3 pounds boiling potatoes
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
Measure out ingredients.
Combine warm water (about 100 degrees), sugar and yeast.
Give it a stir and set aside.
Combine flour and salt in a ginormous mixing bowl.
Combine and warm evaporated milk and regular milk in a microwave safe bowl (about 100 degrees). Beat eggs and add HALF of milk mixture and HALF of the vegetable oil.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.
Using a strainer, pour egg mixture into center of well.
Add puffed-up yeast mixture.
Against your better judgment, add sour cream. You won't be sorry.
Using your clean hands, mix the wet and the dry ingredients.
Slowly begin adding milk mixture to the dough mixture. Do not add all of the milk, depending on humidity, you may not need all of it. It should be a sticky dough but not wet.
Here it is already too wet.
Fortunately, a little sprinkling of flour fixes that right up.
Gradually drizzle the remaining 1/2 cup of vegetable oil around the sides of the mixing bowl.
Use the oil to scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and form the dough into a ball.
Make sure you do the same to the bottom.
Knead the dough for about 5-7 minutes, or until completely smooth.
This is my Tete's famed dough-punching technique. It helps if the table is not too high, so you can use your weight to get into it.
Once it's all kneaded, the dough and bowl should be all well coated with the oil, to avoid sticking to the bowl while proofing.
Cover with plastic wrap or an opened-up plastic bag (it's a little thicker).
Lay a tea towel over loosely over the bowl. Keep in a warm, dry place for at least 2 hours.
While the dough is resting start making the fillings. Wash the potatoes well and cover with water in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender but not mushy. You will need to grate them up without turning them into mashed potatoes.
Once they are cool enough to handle, peel all the potatoes.
Using a box grater, shred up all the potatoes.
It comes about to be about 8 cups of shredded potatoes.
Shred up 3 cups of cheddar cheese (or use pre-shredded).
Combine shredded potatoes, shredded cheddar and black pepper.
Roll up potato mixture into balls, about the size of a baseball. Set aside on a plate. They came out to 10 potato balls.
If you have the time it is always better to shred the cheese the day before, roll up in a cheesecloth, place in a strainer with a weight on it, over a bowl in the fridge. Because this cheese is salted, it tends to release a lot of water. And water is the enemy of walibakh. If the cheese is wet it will make for a soggy walibakh and the dough won't seal and all the filling will ooze out.
Cut the cheese into workable sized chunks.
Shred up the cheese using a box grater, OR if you are super organized and know where your grater attachment is for your food processor, you can bust it out and shred up your 5 pounds of cheese in 30 seconds. Obviously we did the former, not the later....we is old school!
Put the shredded, drained cheese in a large bowl.
Add ricotta cheese, sour cream, and black pepper.
Roll all the cheese into the same size balls as the potato balls. If you didn't have the forsight to drain the cheese the previous day, you can always do it now. Just use some paper towels to squeeze out any excess moisture.
Line them all up on a tray and set aside. They came out to be 18 cheese balls.
After a couple hours go check on the dough. It should have at least doubled in size. Give it a punch all over, cover and let it rest another half an hour.
It should bounce right back, no hard feelings.
Take about a quarter of the dough and roll it into a large loaf on your table.
Slice up the dough into pieces about 2 inches wide.
Roll each slice into a ball, the same size as your cheese and potato balls. Keep the seam side down.
Place the dough balls onto floured trays or baking sheets and set aside.
Make sure you cover the dough balls with something to avoid drying out. You should come out with 28 dough balls, or the same number of filling balls.
By the way, any self-respecting Adighe girl has special towels or cloth exclusively dedicated to bread making, that are not washed with any other household towels.
Beginning with the first balls you made and let rest, grab one ball and place it on your table. Using your fingers, gently press down all around dough, spreading it out to about a 6 inch disc...leaving the dough a little thicker in the center than around the edges.
You can see here the center is a little thicker, the sides a bit thinner.
Place one filling ball in the center of the disc.
Gather the edges of the disc and squeeze them together on the top of the ball.
Make sure the dough is squeezed together really tight, leaving no openings at all.
All closed up.
Flip it over, seam side down. Place filled pouches onto floured trays or pans, cover with cloth to rest while you continue to fill the rest of dough.
Do the same with all the filling.
Until they are all filled and closed.
Preheat your skillet to about 400 degrees and drizzle in about a tablespoon or two of Mazola oil. *My mom always uses an electric skillet because its heat is distributed more evenly and its easier to control the temperature.
*Start with the first cheese-filled ones, as they are harder to work with the longer they sit around.
Moisten the work surface and your hands with vegetable oil. Gently press down on the ball to flatten it.
Use both hands, pressing down sides and center evenly.
Use open fingers so the filling spreads out and doesn't just get pushed down. The oil will help the dough to spread out easily. Plus, if your dough is well rested it will not bounce back.
When you stretch it out about 3/4 of the way there, move your disc onto a opened-up plastic bag or some plastic wrap on a surface directly next to your skillet...so it's easy to move.
Here it is spread out to about a 10-12" disc, a little smaller that your skillet.
Use the plastic wrap to lift up the disc and flip it onto your hand.
Carefully set the disc down into the preheated skillet. Be super careful.
This is why the size you stretch it out to is dictated by the diameter of your skillet.
Once its all golden brown and cooked on one side, flip it over to the other. It cooks up pretty fast, just a few minutes on each side.
It should look like this, all puffy and golden brown.
Get a surface ready to cool the walibakh on, cover with cloth or paper towels to absorb an excess oil.
When they are slightly cooled, stack them up like pancakes.
*Those who aren't afraid of things like cholesterol and cardiac arrest, will grab a stick of butter at this point and slather each walibakh with butter as they stack them up.
This image makes my heart go pitter patter.
Cut them up into quarters and serve as a side dish or a main dish with some hot tea or rice pudding...yum.
Walibakh is one of the traditional Circassian breads I have been hoping to document for quite a while. It is actually from the Qushha region of the Caucasus, but we kind of adopted it. As you can see below, it was not an easy task. Apparently, the only thing more time consuming than making walibakh, is writing out the recipe and photographing the process. If you have several hours on your hands, it is well worth the effort. We made the more traditional potato and cheese filled varieties, but it has also been known to be stuffed with meat or spinach.
I should warn you that my mother does not feel it is worth it to make any dough using less than 5 pounds of flour. If you do not need to make enough for a whole village, feel free to divide this recipe in half...that way you can use your electric mixer with a dough hook instead of kneading by hand. Plus, leftovers freeze nicely for up to 6 months.
Dough Ingredients
5 pounds all-purpose, unbleached flour
2 cans (24 ounces) evaporated milk, warmed
1 1/2 cups milk, warmed
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1 cup water, warmed
1 cup vegetable oil, plus some for work surface
2 packages dry active yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup Mazola oil (for pan frying)
Filling Ingredients
4-5 pound round Touma/Chicago/Syrian white basket cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 15-ounce container ricotta cheese
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
3 pounds boiling potatoes
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
Measure out ingredients.
Combine warm water (about 100 degrees), sugar and yeast.
Give it a stir and set aside.
Combine flour and salt in a ginormous mixing bowl.
Combine and warm evaporated milk and regular milk in a microwave safe bowl (about 100 degrees). Beat eggs and add HALF of milk mixture and HALF of the vegetable oil.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.
Using a strainer, pour egg mixture into center of well.
Add puffed-up yeast mixture.
Against your better judgment, add sour cream. You won't be sorry.
Using your clean hands, mix the wet and the dry ingredients.
Slowly begin adding milk mixture to the dough mixture. Do not add all of the milk, depending on humidity, you may not need all of it. It should be a sticky dough but not wet.
Here it is already too wet.
Fortunately, a little sprinkling of flour fixes that right up.
Gradually drizzle the remaining 1/2 cup of vegetable oil around the sides of the mixing bowl.
Use the oil to scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and form the dough into a ball.
Make sure you do the same to the bottom.
Knead the dough for about 5-7 minutes, or until completely smooth.
This is my Tete's famed dough-punching technique. It helps if the table is not too high, so you can use your weight to get into it.
Once it's all kneaded, the dough and bowl should be all well coated with the oil, to avoid sticking to the bowl while proofing.
Cover with plastic wrap or an opened-up plastic bag (it's a little thicker).
Lay a tea towel over loosely over the bowl. Keep in a warm, dry place for at least 2 hours.
While the dough is resting start making the fillings. Wash the potatoes well and cover with water in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender but not mushy. You will need to grate them up without turning them into mashed potatoes.
Once they are cool enough to handle, peel all the potatoes.
Using a box grater, shred up all the potatoes.
It comes about to be about 8 cups of shredded potatoes.
Shred up 3 cups of cheddar cheese (or use pre-shredded).
Combine shredded potatoes, shredded cheddar and black pepper.
Roll up potato mixture into balls, about the size of a baseball. Set aside on a plate. They came out to 10 potato balls.
If you have the time it is always better to shred the cheese the day before, roll up in a cheesecloth, place in a strainer with a weight on it, over a bowl in the fridge. Because this cheese is salted, it tends to release a lot of water. And water is the enemy of walibakh. If the cheese is wet it will make for a soggy walibakh and the dough won't seal and all the filling will ooze out.
Cut the cheese into workable sized chunks.
Shred up the cheese using a box grater, OR if you are super organized and know where your grater attachment is for your food processor, you can bust it out and shred up your 5 pounds of cheese in 30 seconds. Obviously we did the former, not the later....we is old school!
Put the shredded, drained cheese in a large bowl.
Add ricotta cheese, sour cream, and black pepper.
Roll all the cheese into the same size balls as the potato balls. If you didn't have the forsight to drain the cheese the previous day, you can always do it now. Just use some paper towels to squeeze out any excess moisture.
Line them all up on a tray and set aside. They came out to be 18 cheese balls.
After a couple hours go check on the dough. It should have at least doubled in size. Give it a punch all over, cover and let it rest another half an hour.
It should bounce right back, no hard feelings.
Take about a quarter of the dough and roll it into a large loaf on your table.
Slice up the dough into pieces about 2 inches wide.
Roll each slice into a ball, the same size as your cheese and potato balls. Keep the seam side down.
Place the dough balls onto floured trays or baking sheets and set aside.
Make sure you cover the dough balls with something to avoid drying out. You should come out with 28 dough balls, or the same number of filling balls.By the way, any self-respecting Adighe girl has special towels or cloth exclusively dedicated to bread making, that are not washed with any other household towels.
Beginning with the first balls you made and let rest, grab one ball and place it on your table. Using your fingers, gently press down all around dough, spreading it out to about a 6 inch disc...leaving the dough a little thicker in the center than around the edges.
You can see here the center is a little thicker, the sides a bit thinner.
Place one filling ball in the center of the disc.
Gather the edges of the disc and squeeze them together on the top of the ball.
Make sure the dough is squeezed together really tight, leaving no openings at all.
All closed up.
Flip it over, seam side down. Place filled pouches onto floured trays or pans, cover with cloth to rest while you continue to fill the rest of dough.
Do the same with all the filling.
Until they are all filled and closed.
Preheat your skillet to about 400 degrees and drizzle in about a tablespoon or two of Mazola oil. *My mom always uses an electric skillet because its heat is distributed more evenly and its easier to control the temperature.*Start with the first cheese-filled ones, as they are harder to work with the longer they sit around.
Moisten the work surface and your hands with vegetable oil. Gently press down on the ball to flatten it.
Use both hands, pressing down sides and center evenly.
Use open fingers so the filling spreads out and doesn't just get pushed down. The oil will help the dough to spread out easily. Plus, if your dough is well rested it will not bounce back.
When you stretch it out about 3/4 of the way there, move your disc onto a opened-up plastic bag or some plastic wrap on a surface directly next to your skillet...so it's easy to move.
Here it is spread out to about a 10-12" disc, a little smaller that your skillet.
Use the plastic wrap to lift up the disc and flip it onto your hand.
Carefully set the disc down into the preheated skillet. Be super careful.
This is why the size you stretch it out to is dictated by the diameter of your skillet.
Once its all golden brown and cooked on one side, flip it over to the other. It cooks up pretty fast, just a few minutes on each side.
It should look like this, all puffy and golden brown.
Get a surface ready to cool the walibakh on, cover with cloth or paper towels to absorb an excess oil.
When they are slightly cooled, stack them up like pancakes.*Those who aren't afraid of things like cholesterol and cardiac arrest, will grab a stick of butter at this point and slather each walibakh with butter as they stack them up.
This image makes my heart go pitter patter.
Cut them up into quarters and serve as a side dish or a main dish with some hot tea or rice pudding...yum.
Thank you Umm Ramy for posting this. I've been looking for an online recipe. Can't believe I found it.
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