The World That Was - Hittite Fried Apple Bread

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!

Today, I'll be making another Hittite dish called "fried bread with apples". One of the universal staples of humanity is fried dough, and this is how I'll be interpreting the dish here - as lumps of fried batter with chunks of apple! Since we don't know how fried bread with apple actually was, this is taking a lot of notes from later Greek “tageientes”, and modern apple fritters.

In any case, let's take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

3 small apples

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup apple cider (or apple juice)

honey

butter (for frying)

oil (for frying)

Method:

1 - Chop the Apples

To begin with, peel your apples and cut out their cores. When this is done, chop your apples into chunks, and transfer them into a small bowl. Apples in antiquity were probably not as sweet as apples today, but any apple would work for this. I'm using some sweet eating apples - instead of cooking apples.

2 - Cook the Apples

Put about 2 tablespoons of butter into a frying pan, and put this onto medium-high heat until it melts. Leave this for about 5 minutes until it starts to become liquid. At this point, toss your apples into the pan, and put it back over medium-high heat. Stir this occasionally for about 5 minutes, or until the apple starts to take on a golden complexion. When they're golden, take them off the heat, and let them cool down while you get to work on your batter.

3 - Make the Batter

Mix your tablespoon of salt in with your flour, and whisk everything together. In another bowl, crack an egg, and whisk that together with some melted butter. Whisk it in slowly, so you don't accidentally scramble your egg.

Then, pour in your cider or apple juice - Hittite Cider was unlikely to be carbonated, but this helps the batter stay light when it's cooked! A non-alcoholic substitute would be apple juice, and works just as well, but will result in a slightly denser batter if it’s not carbonated.

When this is done, add your bowl of dry ingredients to your bowl of wet ingredients. Quickly whisk this all together into a lumpy batter - much like pancake batter. Then, pour your cooked apples into this. Fold it all together, and let it sit aside while you prepare your pot of oil.

4 - Prepare the Pot

Pour a good amount of oil into a high-walled pot of your choice. I'm using olive oil, but you could use any neutral-flavoured cooking oil. Put this pot over a high heat, and let it heat up. You'll know when the oil is hot enough when a bit of batter instantly sizzles in the pot. Or just use a thermometer, if you have one.

5 - Cook the Batter

Pour a large scoop of your apple batter into the oil, being careful not to splash hot oil onto your hands as you do. Don't overcrowd your pot, because then it'll be difficult to flip them. My pot can fit about one apple bread round, but that's also dependant on the size of your pot, and the shape of your batter rounds. Remember - even if it looks uneven, they'll come out looking and tasting amazing no matter the shape!

Leave your rounds to cook for about 4-5 minutes a side, or until they're a deep golden brown. Carefully flip them over when bubbles start to form on the uncooked surface of the rounds, try and use two utensils to flip them if you can!

6 - Dry the Apple Bread

When both sides of your apple bread is cooked, turn them out onto a wire rack, or a plate lined with kitchen towels, to drain off excess oil.

7 - Serve

When they've drained for a few minutes, pour some honey over your apple bread, and serve up!

The finished dish is delightfully sweet, and quite light (if you used a carbonated apple-based drink). The honey adds a different kind of sweetness on top of the semi-caramelised apples inside the bread, depending on the kind of honey you use. Hittites in antiquity may have used date honey, but it is not unlikely that domesticated beehives would have provided honey to the Hittites themselves - as contemporary Mesopotamians to the south make references to Hittite Beekeepers introducing beekeeping practices to the Akkadians. Even without honey, these apple bread rounds are sweet from the caramelised apples inside them.

This recipe is only known from it's name, and is completely constructed, but fried dough is one of the common themes among the societies of the world, so it is not entirely a fabricated dish, as it has roots in the societies of the Ancient Near East. The batter in the video was slightly more runny than what they may have been initially, but you can fix this by adding a little bit more flour to the bowl. We know that the Hittites referenced apples a lot, making laws and festivals regarding them, so this it possibly something that was eaten on special occasions in the Hittite year.