If you mistakenly thought Or Yehuda is a sleepy suburb just a few minutes’ drive from Tel Aviv (five minutes when there’s no traffic, but if you don’t drive on Yom Kippur, take at least fifty minutes…), you’d be wrong. In fact, it’s the Berlin of the Cold War era. Not the one between the Soviet Union and the United States, which gave us so many spy books, series, and films - from John le Carré to James Bond - but the quiet war of cumin and Chuma pepper between Iraqi and Tripolitanian cuisine.
In this war, I am like the UN, meaning I can savor a mafrum and a minute later cry with happiness into a bowl of soup with kubeh. “Is this your first time here?” asks - or rather states - Amit Amos, the son of Hannah, who prepares the insane dough leaves at "Blamo Sassi Bureka" on 11 Yehezkel Kazaz Street in Or Yehuda. That’s how it is in a place with regulars. Regulars yes, but he also explains to Tel Aviv tourists who just landed excitedly in front of the bubbling pot over which Amos, the proud Bureka maker, stands.
We’ll get back to Amos and the golden dough that comes out from under his hands, but first, we can’t skip a few words about this street, Yehezkel Kazaz, named after the great-grandson of Rabbi Moshe Shamash, better known as "Chacham Bashi." Kazaz was active in the underground responsible for Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, the immigration of Iraqi Jews, and later became the head of the Or Yehuda local council. The man lived only fifty years, but I can’t think of a more fitting tribute than the insane culinary scene of this street, on both sides: Stews, pastries, meats, and sweets - so much that you could visit every day for a month without eating at the same place twice.
The Exploding Egg
Now, if you’ll allow, we squeeze into the small Bureka shop, with 3-4 tables and a limited menu focused entirely on one dish: Bureka. There’s Bureka with egg - which, despite warnings about taking too big a bite in the circle at its center, will always spill the runny yolk… There’s Bureka with potato - and if the fried pastry alone isn’t enough, Amit is happy to hollow out half a loaf of bread (you can also take a thick slice) from the white part, spread lots of Chuma pepper, and stuff the Bureka inside. Is it a little like bread on bread? Say what you want, but you won’t leave hungry.
In Israel’s exploding street-food scene, dumplings seem to have a place of honor: Bureka has always been here, but in recent years, the mainstream Israeli kitchen has welcomed Russian pelmeni, Bukharian manti, Caucasian chibureki - and it goes on and on, all the way from Russia to Bulgaria, from the Caucasus to Hungary.
Perhaps it relates to our need for comforting, hugging food - because it’s hard to think of anything more comforting than a dumpling. Whatever the reason, the fact remains: We’ve become a nation of pocket foods, something wrapped in dough you can bite into. “That guy from Carmel Market (‘Kobi Bureka’ N.K) who shouts, ‘It only made me feel good’” admits Amos, “before him, people didn’t know what Bureka was, but after he competed on MasterChef, something like 30 people were waiting for me at the opening.”
Because of all the names mentioned above, the Bureka was until a few years ago one of the fried dumplings with the least publicity: Israeli diners knew dim sum and gyoza from the Far East before tasting this Karachi-style creation with egg and potato.
80 Years of Dough
Beyond the skill required for frying, it seems the main difference between one Bureka and another lies in the dough - and that of Blamo-Sassi Bureka is made by Hannah, Amit’s mother. The thin, springy dough is laid out a bit like a crepe on a round griddle (“80 years old!” he proudly tells us), and from there, after wrapping the filling, it’s skillfully dropped into the hot oil.
We went for a Bureka with bread on the side and received four slices of uniform bread spread with a generous portion of Chuma pepper, alongside pickled vegetables, and of course - the Burekas: One with mashed potato and two with egg, whose careful handling still colored our hands with yellow yolk. Not to overpraise: it’s simple food, even by street-food standards, but friends - it’s winning simplicity: The crispiness of the fried dough wraps the softness of the bread, the spicy Chuma pepper lifts the egg and potato to crazy heights - and the touch of pickled vegetables adds the tang that makes this simplicity perfect.
What else is perfect? The price: A Bureka with egg or potato costs NIS 16 (when was the last time you saw a dish, as simple as it is, returning change from NIS 20?), and a Bureka with bread costs NIS 22 - when was the last time you ate, enjoyed, and left full for such a price?