Masoub

معصوب · maʿṣūb

The Hijaz’s famous breakfast — warm brown bread mashed with very ripe bananas, crowned with cream, honey and hot ghee.

Serves 3–4

Photo to come

Ingredients

2 loaves whole-wheat flatbread (brown Arabic bread or whole-wheat toast)
4 very ripe bananas — black-spotted is best
½ cup fresh cream (ashta or table cream)
¼ cup honey
2 tbsp ghee, served hot
Optional royal finish: shredded cheddar, cashews or almonds, raisins

Method

Mash the bananas with a fork — never a blender, which turns the dish to liquid.
Grind or chop the bread coarsely and warm it briefly in a little ghee.
Work the warm bread into the bananas until cohesive — the vigorous mashing (‘asb’) is what the dish is named for.
Mix in half the cream and most of the honey; taste.
Spread into a serving dish and level the top.
Finish with the rest of the cream, a drizzle of honey, and the optional cheese, nuts and raisins — then pour the hot ghee over so everything softens. Eat warm.

The family table

Jeddah has whole shops that serve nothing else — ‘plain’ masoub is bread and banana; ‘royal’ adds cream, honey, nuts and, yes, cheddar, a genuinely local sweet-savory touch. Its roots run to Yemen, like much of the Hijazi breakfast table. The bananas must be past their prime; the bread must be warm.

Yumma

Middle Eastern home cooking, organized by country. Your family’s version is the one that counts.