Ma'soub is breakfast at its most honest. Flatbread is torn and mashed in a deep wooden bowl with very ripe bananas and ghee until it becomes a soft, dense mound, then topped with honey and cream. Its roots are in Hadhramaut in neighboring Yemen, and Hadhrami families carried it north, where it became a much loved breakfast in Mecca, Medina and Jeddah. Today Jeddah cafés serve it with cheese, dates, cream or more honey, as each customer prefers.

It is rich, sweet and a little rustic, exactly what a late breakfast should be after a night race on the Corniche. It takes ten minutes and calls for very little skill, although considerable restraint is needed not to keep adding honey.

The ma'soub

Ingredients

• 4 whole wheat flatbreads
• 4 tablespoons (55 g) ghee
• 4 very ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) hot water
• 1 pinch ground cardamom

Method

1. Melt 3 tablespoons of the ghee in the skillet over medium heat. Add the torn bread and stir for 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Add the banana slices and cardamom. Cook, stirring and pressing with the masher or spoon, for 3 to 4 minutes, adding a splash of hot water if it seems dry.
3. Keep mashing and folding over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes until bread and banana become one dense, soft mass.

To finish

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (85 g) honey
• 1/2 cup (120 g) qishta or clotted cream
• 4 soft dates
• 2 tablespoons chopped pistachios or almonds
• 1 tablespoon (15 g) ghee

Method

1. Pile the ma'soub into the serving bowl and make a hollow in the top. Pour in the melted ghee and drizzle honey over the whole surface. Add spoonfuls of cream, the dates and the nuts.

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