Suares Fried Unleav­ened Tor­tillas for Rosh Hashanah 

Matute, Spain

The fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion is from a Span­ish inqui­si­tion tri­al that dates back to the begin­ning of the six­teenth cen­tu­ry. The court of the Holy Office start­ed to sen­tence the cryp­to-Jews for their hid­den Jew­ish prac­tices, only twen­ty-four years earlier.

María García Redon­do report­ed to the court in Almazan on June 6, 1505, that the wife of Fran­cis­co Suares, who lived in Matute (La Rio­ja, Spain), was prepar­ing unleav­ened bread dough, knead­ing it with an egg, and adding oil to the dough. She remem­bers that it was for the peri­od of San Miguel (a feast that falls on Sep­tem­ber 29, dur­ing Rosh Hashana) and that she made three tor­tillas and a small cake, and that the cake with meat in it was eat­en by a child she saw.

“[Maria] saw the wife of the afore­men­tioned Fran­cis­co [Suares], whose name is unknown, knead­ing unleav­ened bread [pan cenceño], that is to say, bread with­out yeast. She knead­ed it with one egg and added oil to the […] dough. And she remem­bers it was for San Miguel, and that she made three tortillas.” 

Those fried tor­tillas can be paired with beef made from a beef stew. The beef would need to be shred­ded and placed in the mid­dle of the fried tor­tilla. The fried tor­tilla could also be dipped briefly in the beef stew broth and the shred­ded meat could be placed on the top.

Serves: 12 tortillas

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingre­di­ents:

2Ѕ cups (375 g) flour

Ѕ tea­spoon of salt

2 table­spoons (20 ml) olive oil

⅔ cup + 1 tbsp (150 ml) warm water

1 egg

⅛ cup (30 g) pome­gran­ate syrup,

to driz­zle

⅛ cup fresh cheese, like labneh

3 figs, dried or fresh

Oil for fry­ing (such as vegetable

or canola oil)

1. In a large mix­ing bowl, whisk togeth­er the flour and salt. Add the olive oil, warm water, and egg to the bowl and mix until a dough forms. Knead the dough on a light­ly floured sur­face for 5 – 7 min­utes, until it is smooth and elastic.
2. Divide the dough into small pieces. Each one should be 1⅛ oz (30 g), the size of a ping-pong ball. Put them in a plas­tic bag and cool in the fridge for 1 hour. Roll the dough balls out into thin cir­cles (about 6 inches/​15 cm in diameter).
3. Heat a large skil­let over medi­um-high heat and add a small amount of oil. Fry the matzah tor­tillas one at a time, flip­ping once, until they are light­ly browned on both sides (about 1 minute on each side).
4. Remove the mat­zo from the skil­let, driz­zle with pome­gran­ate syrup, and dip into fresh cheese and eat with figs. If desired, you can break the mat­zot into small pieces and fry them in oil until they are crispy.