Sabich Recipe: How To Make Eggplant and Eggs Pita Sandwich

Sabich is an eggplant and egg sandwich, made with eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, tahini, and Israeli salad in pita bread, and it is one of the most popular sandwiches in Israel, and is considered its first native dish.

Why I ❤️ it • Recipe • Ingredients • Preparation

Sabich sandwich of eggplants and pita bread.

Why I ❤️ it

Can you believe this healthy-looking dish is considered street food. Well, it is, but this amazing fried eggplant and cucumber salad with a wonderful combination of flavors and textures is way more wonderful than it looks.

This recipe has instructions to make a more authentic version (go as far as you want), or a simpler version that is still a great lunch dish, a light dinner or even a great snack.

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Utensils and tools

• Skillet
• Paper towel
  Oven

Ingredients

Huevos haminados (marbled eggs)

• Dry skin of 5 red onions
• 1 teaspoon of ground coffee
• ½ teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
• 6 eggs

Fried eggplants

• 3 medium eggplants, sliced very thinly
• 3 tablespoons of salt
• 1 cup of olive oil

Tahini sauce

• ¼ cup of tahini (sesame paste)
• ¼ cup of cold water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice, (or ½tablespoon of lime juice)
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 sprigs of flat parsley, chopped

Salat yerakot yisraeli (salad)

• 2 cups of diced tomato, (about 3 large tomatoes)
• 1 cup of diced cucumber, (about 2 small cucumbers)
• 1 small red onion, chopped very small
• 3 tablespoons of minced flat parsley

To serve

• 4 pita bread

Preparation

Before starting, please make sure you have all the ingredients and utensils ready.

How to cook haminado eggs

1. Place the onion skin, coffee, bicarbonate, and eggs in a deep oven-safe bowl. cover with water plus 4 inches [14 cm]. Cover with a tight fitting lid and place in the oven at the minimum temperature it reaches. Cook for 3 hours.
2. Remove from the liquid, and gently tap against the countertop to crack the eggshells but without peeling. Return to the oven, cover, and cook for another 2 hours. Turn off the heat and leave it in the oven until it reaches room temperature (about another hour).
3. Remove the eggs from the water (discard water and onion peels), peel, and cut the eggs into quarters. Set them aside.

How to fry the eggplants

1. Place the eggplants in a deep bowl. Cover with a quart [1 lt] of water and add the salt. Let it rest for an hour.
2. Remove the eggplants from the water, rinse the salt water and place on paper towels. Press with another paper towel to remove as much water as possible.
3. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a frying pan. Deep fry the eggplant slices until they turn golden brown.
4. Let them rest on a paper towel to remove excess oil. Set aside.

How to make tahini sauce

1. Combine tahini, cold water, lemon juice, salt, garlic and parsley until you have a thick but pourable sauce (you may need to add a bit more water). Set aside.

How to make Salat yerakot yisraeli (salad)

1. Mix all the tomato, cucumber, onion and parsley and mix to combine. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

How to assemble and serve

1. Halve the pita bread, and stuff each pita pocket with salad, eggplant, and eggs.
2. Drizzle with tahini sauce to taste.

Variations

If you want to make a lighter version, you can make with roasted eggplant slices.

If making haminados eggs is just too long, you can simply boil the eggs (10 mins for hard-boiled eggs).

Vegan sabich

For a vegan version, just leave out the eggs.

Top tips

As I mentioned before, there are many, many versions of this dish. The haminado eggs are not as common as plain hard-boiled eggs. I like the look and flavor of the haminado eggs (plus the Spanish connection), but you may go with hard-boiled eggs to save time.

Serving suggestions

A common addition to this is amba sauce (a pickled mango sauce used as a condiment) and skhug or zhug (a spicy green or red pepper sauce), the latter of which I have made and absolutely love.

As a non-traditional choice, try this lemon herb tahini recipe.

Nutritional information

Calories: 563kcal - Carbohydrates: 61g - Protein: 21gFat: 30g - Saturated Fat: 5g - Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g - Monounsaturated Fat: 16g - Trans Fat: 0.03g - Cholesterol: 246mg - Sodium: 5872mg - Potassium: 1339mg - Fiber: 16g - Sugar: 17g - Vitamin A: 884IU - Vitamin C: 26mg - Calcium: 149mg - Iron: 6mg

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FAQs

History and inspiration

I almost left my trip to Tel-Aviv without tasting this eggplant and eggs pita sandwich. That would have been nothing short of a tragedy. This is the quintessential Israeli dish.

I first tried this dish at The Happiness Joint, where two surfer dude-looking young men have made a name for themselves making and serving Sabich. I have tried here to reproduce theirs as best as I can.

Sure, all the parts seem to have come from elsewhere (The salat yerakot yisraeli [Israeli Vegetable Salad] is from Palestinian and Arab origin. The huevos haminados [Oven Eggs] are of Sephardi [Spanish Jewish] origin, and tahini is used all throughout the Middle East) but it was in Israel where somebody first stuffed all this into pita bread.

Like you would expect, every vendor keeps their recipe behind tight lips, and some of those versions are going to be very difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

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