What's Actually in a Manoushe
Zaatar, cheese, meat, spinach — what each one is and how it is meant to be eaten.
A manoushe is flatbread with something baked onto it. Manakeesh is the plural. It is breakfast across the Levant and in Ajman it is eaten at every hour, which is why we bake it through the day.
Zaatar
Dried thyme, sumac and sesame, mixed with olive oil and spread on before baking. It comes out savoury and a little sour from the sumac. This is the one to start with.
Cheese
Cheese, melted flat across the dough. Eaten hot, it pulls. Left to cool, it sets. That is why people fold it in the car rather than wait to get home.
Meat and muhammara
Minced meat, seasoned and baked into the surface rather than piled on. Muhammara is red pepper and walnut, ground into a paste — deep and slightly sweet and it has no meat in it at all.
Spinach and labneh
Spinach is cooked with onion and lemon so it stays sharp rather than heavy. Labneh is strained yogurt, spread thick — sour, cold in the middle and usually eaten with zaatar beside it.
How to eat it
Fold it in half, from the edge. Do not cut it into slices. And eat it hot — a manoushe that has gone cold is a different food and not a better one.