Pain petri

Pain petriis a braided bread ofMoroccan Jewishorigin, that is traditionally baked forShabbat,theJewishsabbath, as well asRosh Hashanahand other Holidays,and is popular among the Moroccan Jewish community ofMorocco,France, andIsrael.
The namePain petriinFrenchtranslates literally to "kneaded bread", due to the historically long time required to knead pain petri prior to the invention ofstand mixers, and other kitchen appliances.Traditionally the women of the Moroccan Jewish community would knead the dough for a long period of time for the pain petri to obtain a lighter consistency.
Pain petri is made with an enriched dough, contained flour, egg, oil, sugar, salt, and anise seeds. It is braided into a shape similar to a narrower challah, or it is braided into an oblong ring shape similar to a Jerusalem bagel. It is traditionally served for Shabbat as the bread used forHaMotzi, as well as the bread served with Shabbat meals, it is also served on some otherJewish holidaysand special occasions.A special round variation is traditionally made forRosh Hashanah.
Pain petri has been traditionally prepared by members of the Moroccan Jewish community for hundreds of years, since before theSpanish Inquisition. It is somewhat similar to other Shabbat breads such as theAlgerian Jewishmouna, theEthiopian Jewishdabo, theYemenite Jewishkubaneh, andchallah. Though it has a number of key differences from these other Jewish breads. For most of its history, pain petri was baked incommunal ovens, as the members of the Moroccan Jewish community did not have their own ovens at home and had to share a communal, outdoor oven amongst the community. It has only been since theexpulsion of Jews from Morocco, and their subsequentreturn to Israel, or emigration toFrancein the mid-20th century, that this bread has been baked in home ovens. With the exodus of their community from Morocco, pain petri has been brought by the Moroccan Jewish diaspora to France, Israel, the United States, and Canada, though it is still baked by the remaining Jewish community in Morocco.
Pain petri differs from challah, and indeed many other breads in general, in that it is typically made relatively quickly, with the process from start to finish taking an hour. Many recipes for the bread only require 90 minutes of preparation until the pain petri is ready. A dough is made with flour, water, eggs, yeast, oil, sugar, and anise seeds, and a hole is poked through the middle of the dough which is allowed to rest for 15 minutes. It is then shaped into logs, and then braided to form a number of small loaves in a braided oblong oval-shape, or a braided "baguette"-style shape (similar to a narrow challah). It is brushed with an egg wash, and topped with toasted sesame seeds, and baked.It can also be made in amonkey bread-style shape, similar to kubaneh.It is traditionally served with the Moroccan Jewish shabbat meal ofchamin,chrain, ortagine, withcouscous.
Pain petri was featured inThe Encyclopedia of Jewish Foodby RabbiGil Marks. It was also featured inJoan Nathan’s 2004 cookbookThe Jewish Holiday Cookbook, as well as her 2010 cookbookQuiches, Kugel, and Couscous: My Search For Jewish Cooking in France,where she wrote of encountering a version of the bread originating from a member the Jewish community that formerly residedFez, Morocco.