Moroccan Style Breadsticks

STEP 1: PREPARE THE PRESERVED LEMON

Quarter the preserved lemons. Scrape out and discard the pulp, the membrane and every trace of brine — you want the rind and nothing else. Rinse the rind under cold water and pat it hard between sheets of kitchen paper. Chop it to a 2-3 mm dice, no larger, then spread it on a wire rack set in a baking sheet and dry it in a 100°C / 210°F oven for 10-12 minutes, or press it between fresh kitchen paper for a quarter of an hour. It should feel tacky rather than wet, and it should leave no damp mark on paper. Preserved lemon is roughly two thirds water, and that water carries salt and acid that a lean dough has no use for. The flavor you want lives in the peel oil and survives drying completely.

STEP 2: SCALE THE SALT TO THE LEMON

Preserved lemon rind stays salty after rinsing. The dough salt here is set at 6 g rather than the 9-10 g a 500 g flour batch would normally take, on the assumption that the rind makes up the balance. Taste a scrap of your rind before you mix: if it is fiercely salty, drop the dough salt to 4 g; if your lemons were a mild commercial brand, go up to 7 g. This cannot be corrected once the dough is mixed.

STEP 3: MIX AND KNEAD

Flour into the mixer bowl, yeast on one side, salt and caster sugar on the other. Add the olive oil and most of the warm water and mix on low to bring it together, holding back the last 2 tablespoons until you can feel the dough. Knead on medium for 6-8 minutes, or 10 minutes by hand. This should be a firm, tight, slightly dry dough at roughly 54% hydration. Resist the urge to soften it — a slack dough gives a chewy breadstick, and chewy is exactly what this brief was written to catch.

STEP 4: ADD THE LEMON AND ROSEMARY LAST

Chop the rosemary needles very fine, so that no piece is longer than about 3 mm. Whole or coarsely chopped needles act like tiny blades in a stick this thin and will tear it as you roll. Add the rosemary and the dried lemon rind for the last 45 seconds of kneading only, just long enough to distribute them. Longer mixing shreds the rind and works its remaining moisture back into the crumb.

STEP 5: PROVE

Cover and prove at room temperature for about an hour, until risen by half — not doubled. A big airy prove gives an open crumb, and an open crumb bends instead of snapping. The acidity from the rind slows the yeast slightly, so give it the full hour and judge by the dough rather than the clock.

STEP 6: DIVIDE AND ROLL

Turn the dough out onto a bench dusted with semolina rather than flour — semolina gives grip without softening the surface. Divide into 36 pieces of about 24 g each and weigh them, because uniformity is half of what this challenge is marking. Roll each piece under flat palms from the center outward to 28-30 cm, keeping the diameter even end to end. Lay each one against the card guide before it goes on the sheet. Sticks that finish short of 25 cm fail the brief outright, and sticks that taper fail at the thin end first.

STEP 7: REST UNCOVERED

Lay the sticks on parchment-lined sheets with 2 cm between them and rest them uncovered for 15 minutes. Uncovered is deliberate: a short dry rest sets a skin, and that skin is what lets the surface crisp while the center is still drying out.

STEP 8: BAKE, THEN DRY

Heat the oven to 200°C / 400°F (180°C fan). Bake for 12 minutes, turn the sheets, then bake another 8-10 minutes until evenly pale gold with a little color at the edges. Now drop the oven to 140°C / 275°F and leave them in for a further 12-15 minutes to dry through to the core. This second low stage is what makes the snap. Color is not the test — a stick can be handsomely golden and still be soft in the middle. Cool completely on a wire rack before you judge them; they crisp substantially as they cool.

STEP 9: MAKE THE RAS EL HANOUT OIL

Warm the olive oil in a small pan until it is hand-warm — no hotter, no shimmer. Take it off the heat, stir in the ras el hanout, and leave it to stand for 15 minutes. It will turn the color of dark amber and the cinnamon and rose in the blend will come forward. Do not skip this: a dry blend will not adhere to a baked stick and tastes of dust if it never meets fat, because most of what makes ras el hanout smell like itself is fat-soluble and stays locked up until warm oil opens it.

STEP 10: FINISH

Brush the cooled sticks lightly with the spiced oil — a film, not a coat — then return them to the 140°C / 275°F oven for 5 minutes so the oil sets on the surface rather than soaking in. Scatter with crushed flaky sea salt and the toasted sesame seeds if you are using them, then cool again. If you would rather not re-bake, brush the oil on within an hour of serving instead: oil left sitting on a dry stick will soften it by the next day.

STEP 11: SERVE

Stand them in a tall glass or lay them flat on a board, with the remaining spiced oil alongside for dipping. They are built for a mezze table — labneh, olives, harissa, a bowl of soup.