The following is excerpted from Israel Eats by Steven Rothfeld, reprinted by permission of Gibbs Smith.
This challah, the cover image of Israel Eats, was sitting on a low wood table when I arrived at the home of Erez Komarovsky, a celebrated Israeli chef, in Mattat, a community in Northern Israel. He refers to it as a “salty yeast cake,” and it truly melts in your mouth. The dough needs to rise overnight in the refrigerator, so please plan ahead for this tour de force.