Moroccan Meloui/Moroccan Round Pancakes/Melwi

Moroccan cuisine is typically a mix of Arabic, Andalusian, Berber and Mediterranean cuisines with a slight European and Subsaharan influence. And i love their cuisine very much, obviously if i get a chance to cook their dishes at home, i wont hesitate a second to prepare them at home. Am kick starting this week's blogging marathon with 'Moroccan Special' as theme. For the first day of this week's blogging marathon, i couldnt resist to prepare this super flaky round pancakes aka Meloui/Melwi.Moroccan Meloui is a flaky pancakes prepared prominently with fine semolina and all purpose flour with yeast. Once kneaded as dough and doubled in volume, this yeasted dough is flattened as much as thin. The meloui dough calls the rolling and layering as much as like South Indian parottas.

Though this Meloui calls for same ingredients as much as like Msemen, the shaping differs from the square pancakes aka Msemen. Meloui are served for breakfast or for snacks with the most popular Moroccan mint tea. While i posted Msemen, i have already mentionned that Moroccan pancakes are rolled both square or round, and their name differs as well. Meloui calls very much like rolling and layering popular parottas. Obviously if you make excellent parottas then you will definitely shape easily meloui with less efforts.

2cups All purpose flour
2cups Fine quality Semolina
1tsp Dry instant yeast
1tsp Salt
2tbsp Sugar
2cups Warm water
Extra flour for kneading
1cup Vegetable oil 
2tbsp Butter (room temperature)
Extra semolina for folding

Take the flour, semolina, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl. make a well in the centre and pour enough warm water and mix everything with a wooden spoon.

Add a little more water and knead everything as a dough by hands.

Lightly flour a work surface and drop the dough onto it. Flour the hands and knead the dough until it turns smooth.

Grease a tray with oil generously. With well oiled hands, divide the dough into 12 medium balls and place them on the greased tray.

Cover with a damp towel and leave aside for 20 minutes in a warm place.

Oil the hands and work surface generously and start flattening the balls individually into the usual round shape with the fingers.

Rub the butter on the top and sprinkle semolina, fold the two longer ends to the centre,roll to form a spiral log sprinkling semolina again before the final fold.

Place the folded pancakes to the oiled tray and do the same with the other dough balls. 

When done, cover with damp tea towel again and let rest for another 20 minutes.

Take a piece and place it on your oiled work surface. Using your hands pat down and pull to enlarge the round to roughly.

Heat few drops of oil in a griddle pan, drop one meloui on the pan and fry for about 2-3 minutes on each side, flipping over at least twice on each side.

Serve with some butter, honey and cream cheese.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#83