grilled flatbread

World, meet my latest infatuation. I am hopelessly smitten, and you should be, too.

In case the pictures aren’t enough to rope you in, I made a list spelling out all the reasons to love.

1. No kneading.
2. The recipe uses part whole wheat
3. The dough can sit at-the-ready in the fridge for several days.
4. It tastes awesome—chewy and tender.
5. It’s flexible—top it with everything, or nothing
6. It’s bread without turning on the oven!
7. (Which means I can now make bread even if the power goes out!!!)

And that pretty much sums it up.

The other night, I made pesto flatbread by topping the finished breads with pesto (from our first big basil picking!), fresh Parmesan, and some mozzarella and then slipping them back on the hot-but-turned-off grill for a couple minutes.

The cheeses didn’t melt all the way, so next time I might slip the breads onto a piece of foil and then put them in the lidded, turned-on-low grill for a couple minutes.

Grilled Flatbread
Adapted from the July 2012 issue of Bon Appétit

3 cups warm water
2 ½ teaspoons yeast
4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (I used pastry)
2 tablespoons kosher salt (I used Diamond Crystal)
½ cup sour cream

The dough:
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Stir in the flours and let rest for 20 minutes. Add the sour cream and salt and mix vigorously. It will be quite wet.

Let the dough rise at room temp for about an hour before covering well with a plastic shower cap and refrigerating.

Shaping and grilling:
Very important note: when shaping the dough, you need to do two things: flour it to death and move fast.

Fire up the grill—you want it to be about 400 degrees. (I really have no idea on this part. The directions say a “medium-hot fire,” so whatever.)

Snowball a baking tray with flour. Flour your hands. Flour your hands again. Scoop out a handful of the chilled dough, using a scissors or sharp knife to separate it from the rest of the dough. Plop the dough onto the tray, flour the dough well and press it into a flat mass, about 1/4 inch high. Repeat until you have all the flatbreads you need. Put the leftover dough back in the fridge.

Oil the grill.

Quickly, and with lots of extra flour so the dough doesn’t stick, scoop up the flatbreads (one at a time, of course) and lay them on the grill. Close the lid. After several minutes, the breads should be bubbly on top and, on the bottom, brown with flecks of black. Flip, and grill for another minute or two.

Allow the breads to cool for a couple minutes before eating.

Yield: 8-12 flatbreads, depending on the size.

This same time, years previous: red raspberry lemon bars, angst over my daughter’s reading, raspberry lemon buttermilk cake, angel bread

6 Comments

  • the domestic fringe

    Thank you. I'll try the buttermilk. I do make focaccia bread and we all love it. I may try grilling that.
    ~FringeGirl

  • the domestic fringe

    I love the idea of making Flatbread. When we lived in Maine, we would go to a great little organic pizza shop. They made Flatbread pizzas in a stone, wood fired oven that was pretty much in the center of the restaurant. It was fun to watch them cook it and the pizzas were delicious. Sometimes I'm tempted to drive back up to Maine just eat there.

    Anyway, my husband can't have sour cream, because of a food intolerance. Do you think there's any substitute?

    ~FringeGirl

    • Jennifer Jo

      Can he have yogurt? If not, you can omit it entirely and use 1/4 cup (or thereabouts) of buttermilk, I imagine. Or you can just make a regular pizza dough/focaccia bread recipe and call it flatbread, though it might not be as tender and tangy.

  • Margo

    fascinating. I am just now experimenting with the artisan no-knead bread in the CROCKPOT (can you believe it?!) so I'm going to experiment with this too. The recipe is a little different.

  • Peggy

    I don't know if you knew this but these can be made on an electric griddle too… if its too hot outside and you still have electricity. We make them up and cook up a big batch which are then stored for later use.

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