Have you ever heard of hobz before? Learn here all about the classic hobz Malti, or the typical Maltese bread! If you have ever visited Malta before, then you surely must have come across this lovely bread back there!
We are avid bread lovers, the hubby and I.
How about you?
Do you love bread?
Unfortunately the quality of the breads here in our hometown used to be pretty mediocre. It is way too often too sweet, bland and my gosh, there are more holes in it than there is bread!
Industrial quality, pre packed and sliced. Another thing that we hate.
Quality
And I can assure you that it was the same for supermarkets as well as baker shops.
So yep, the bread here in town used to be pretty disappointing. Which is a pity of course because like our breads. Every time we would try it again, we would soon regret buying that bread.
What happened to the good classic loaf here in town?
The only decent ‘bread’ that we could find, is that black German bread by the name of pumpernickel. Do you know that bread? It is delicious, but heavy and sticky. And we love it but it’s not the kind of bread that you can eat day in day out.
But no decent bread in sight anywhere.
Focaccio And Fougasse
And for that reason we got bored very quickly.
So because of this my hubby even started baking his own bread at home since a couple of years!
Crunchy sourdough bread packed with flavor… I love the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning! He also bakes focaccia and fougasse breads. And I can guarantee you that he is very good at it. His bread get better and better the more he makes them.
So finally we have decent bread for our breakfast in the morning.
And around noon for lunch!
Le Pain Quotidien
And even in the evening!
A few years ago a Belgian organic bakery chain by the name of Le Pain Quotidien opened a baker shop in our town. And I have to add ‘finally’ to that sentence!
This fortunately took away half of hubby’s bread baking workload.
They sell excellent rustic breads, so crunchy.
Now there is even a very good baker at the Saturday market who sells traditional French style breads and baguettes.
Delicious as well.
Maltese Hobz Bread
Back to Malta.
Learn all about the classic hobz, the typical Maltese bread! If you have visited Malta before, then you must have come across this lovely bread!
Maltese bread comes in 2 different ways.
HOBZ MALTI, a light sourdough bread shaped into a ball.
And then there is also the FTIRA, a rougher shaped flatbread with a hole in the middle, which looks more like a huge rough donut to be honest.
Maltese bakers traditionally bake the breads in a stone oven which results in a crunchy crust and a light and fluffy center.
But what is the difference between those 2 breads?
You guessed it right: the ingredients!
Hobz Malti
The Maltese hobz (hobz malti) contains water, flour and yeast.
Mix those 3 ingredients together, let the sticky bread dough raise at room temperature under a kitchen towel for a certain time and then knead it again. Repeat that a couple of times until the dough is light and full of air bubbles.
If you have ever baked bread before, this method might look familiar to you. Hobz is then baked in a hot stone oven until the top is nicely blackened and blistered.
Delicious…
Ftira
The ftira flatbread mainly consists of flour and water.
It is mixed little by little and left to rest for some time (a couple of days even). However I also find recipes that tell you to use a little piece of yeasty sourdough from the hobs dough to help it raise.
Acts like a kind of yeast starter.
I have read quite a lot of different opinions on the internet though. Hey, I like the fact that people have their own specific home recipe for these things! Anyway, I asked our baker here in Marsaskala and he only uses the flour and water mixture, no yeast.
Donut Shape
Ftira comes in a few shapes.
You will see that traditional ftira mostly has the shape of a huge donut like bread. Some bakers even sprinkle sesame seeds on top. However I have come across ftira breads in Malta that were pretty much square without a hole in it at all.
Depends on who’s making them I guess!
Hobz Biz-Zjet
If you have ever visited Malta you might have come across loads of hobz biz-zjet.
This is a popular Maltese sandwich.
But what is it exactly?
Hobz biz-zjet sandwich is hobz bread that contains a bunch of delicious ingredients.
Think of a mediterranean mixture of canned tuna, capers in brine, olives, fresh tomatoes (or spread with a fresh tomato puree), red onion, butter lettuce, bigilla (a typical Maltese broad bean paste), Maltese boiled sausage, Maltese cheeses (gbejna), fresh herbs…
And so on.
The whole lot is also drizzled with a good splash of olive oil.
Hobz biz-zjet literally means bread and oil by the way.
French Pan Bagnat
Wait a minute, that sounds familiar!
This hobz biz-zjet sandwich looks pretty much like a pan bagnat, a local sandwich from Nice (France) that also contains mainly tuna, tomatoes, capers and lettuce.
Pan bagnat actually means ‘soaked bread’. Because the French also drizzle the bread with plenty of olive oil.
Gozitan Ftira
A last remark about the ftira bread.
In Gozo (a little island near Malta) there’s also a specialty called ftira but it is not the same! I like the Gozitan ftira: a pizza topped with ingredients such as tomatoes, olives, onion, potatoes, local cheese…
The dough is folded inwards right before baking which makes the crust very crunchy.
Hobz Malti
Learn all about the classic hobz, the typical Maltese bread! If you have visited Malta before, then you must have come across this lovely bread!
