Wild garlic flaky flatbreads

The first thing I did the other day when I came home with a bunch of wild garlic that I found at the market, was munch on a few of them raw on the spot. I was intent on inhaling that grassy, herby, garlic flavor of these beauties that whispered in my ear that the arrival of spring is not too far away now.

I have never come across wild garlic anywhere before; I’m not the foraging kind and my local market doesn’t carry them, so by pure luck I bumped into them and couldn’t control myself with happiness. What a food geek am I, right?

By the way, on the same day, I decided to buy a hugely expensive bottle of 100% yuzu citrus juice (yuzu is a native Japanese citrus fruit that can only be found in Japan) and was ecstatic about that too, but that’s another post entirely.

Back to wild garlic. Thoughts and ideas were racing through my head about what to do with it, and I began to complicate things, as per usual, but then I thought to myself, hey, snap out of it, this is garlic, it’s garlic!, you know what to do with garlic, its’ the best thing in the world. Make wild garlic pesto, add it straight to salads, make tzatziki (I did! will share soon here it is!), make garlic butter and smear it on a nice, juicy piece of steak or toast, serve it with baked salmon (I did that too), oh there’s no limit to what wild garlic can do.

The first thing I did do with it, though, was use it to make these flatbreads, and they were incredible. Blistered and buttery, soooo flaky and deeply aromatic from the wild garlic, and for me, one of the best flatbreads I’ve ever tasted.

They’re thin and crispy yet bendy and a little chewy, thus perfect for souvlaki, buttery but light, with a rich flavor from the olive oil and the herby, grassy flavor of the wild garlic which is usually more mellow than that of regular garlic. The leaves have a soft garlic flavor while the small stalks have a stronger, sharper, garlicky flavor that is reminiscent of spring onion, so essentially the flavor of wild garlic is to me like a cross between regular garlic and spring onion.

They’re the best accompaniment to soups and stews, helping you mop up all the juices from your plate, ideal served with grilled meats or fish, perfect to wrap your chicken or meat skewers around, to serve alongside huge salads and roasted vegetables of any kind, and to dip it into labneh or hummus.

I have to say that they’re quite addictive, you can’t possibly eat just one, so beware; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Wild garlic flaky flatbreads

I only used the leaves of the wild garlic, not the little stalks because they will tear through the delicate dough when you roll it out, so don’t be tempted to add that part either.

The wild garlic leaves I used were approximately 14 cm long each and I mention that because their size varies.

Wild garlic is also known as ramson or bear garlic.

Yield: 10 flatbreads

Ingredients
85 g unsalted butter
375 g 00 flour
Sea salt
175 ml water
16-18 wild garlic leaves, chopped

30 g melted and cooled unsalted butter, for brushing dough

Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing flatbreads and baking paper

Special equipment: stand mixer, plastic wrap, rolling pin (I use a thin rolling pin, the one I use to roll out phyllo dough), soft pastry brush, baking paper, cast-iron or other heavy-bottomed frying pan/skillet/griddle pan


Preparation
Melt the 85 g of butter and leave to cool for 10 minutes.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour and salt and whisk. Add the melted butter and with the dough hook attachment mix for a few seconds. Add the water gradually and knead the dough until you have a smooth, shiny and soft dough, for about 5 minutes. Shape it into a ball and place it back in the bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave dough to rest for 3 hours at room temperature.

Take the dough out of the bowl and divide it into 10 equal-sized pieces. I weighed them because I’m OCD. Roll them into balls and place them on a baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap so they don’t dry out. The dough balls should be soft and pliable. Leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Before starting to roll them out, have a baking sheet and baking paper ready because you will stack the flatbreads between pieces of baking paper that you need to grease with olive oil so the flatbreads don’t stick on them.

Have your melted and cooled 30 g of butter ready, as well as the chopped wild garlic leaves.

Working on a clean surface (no flour needed), take one ball and using a rolling pin, roll it out to a 22-23 cm round (you don’t need to be too strict with the shape, it can be slightly oblong/oval shape).
Brush the top with melted and cooled butter (be aware that the amount of butter should last for all 10 flatbreads so eyeball it), scatter a few pieces of chopped wild garlic leaves and then sprinkle with some sea salt.

Roll the dough tightly up into a long and thin rope and then wind that rope to form a tight coil. Using your rolling pin, roll out that coil into a 23-25 cm round. Again, you don’t need to be too strict with the shape, it can be slightly oblong/oval, but you must be strict with how big it is; don’t roll them out bigger because they will be thinner and they will be more like crackers instead of flaky flatbreads.

Place the flatbread on a piece of baking paper that you have greased well with olive oil and cover it. You don’t want the flatbreads to dry up!
Continue preparing the rest of the flatbreads, keeping them stacked on top of each other, in between sheets of oiled baking paper.

Heat your cast-iron or other heavy-bottomed frying pan/skillet/griddle pan over a medium-high heat. When it heats up very good, turn heat down to medium and cook the flatbreads, one at a time, about 2 minutes per side, regulating the heat so they don’t burn. When you take the flatbread off the heat, immediately brush both sides with a little olive oil and serve.

They are best served warm but they are delicious when they cool as well.

Soda bread

I love long-fermented sourdough bread and breads that take hours or even days to prepare and develop flavor. I love making all kinds of sweet, yeasted breads like Greek tsoureki and French brioche, and even my doughnuts get a long overnight proofing in the fridge. But I don’t always have time for that, no matter how delicious and enjoyable the outcome.

There’s something to be said about a bread that takes only an hour from start to finish, a bread that has a beautifully crunchy, hard crust and a soft and fluffy, closed crumb. With a nutty flavor from the whole wheat flour, a sharp edge from the buttermilk and a subtle, bitter tang from the baking soda, it’s a delicious bread that is hearty and light at the same time, but don’t expect it to be like a yeasted bread, because it’s not. It’s a different animal; it’s the Irish soda bread.

The most common kind of soda bread in Ireland is made only with whole wheat flour, that’s why they call it simply brown bread or wheaten bread, but the addition of white flour brings a lightness to it that is rather welcomed.

For me, it’s the kind of bread that I would make on a Sunday morning to promptly have for breakfast or brunch, slathered while still steaming hot from the oven with the best butter I can find. Or use it to make a nice hearty sandwich with a few slices of ham or salami, good fatty cheese like Emmental, Gruyère or Cheddar, or go the Greek route and serve it with some feta, olives and juicy tomatoes, especially if I make it in the summer.

Hope you enjoy it too!

Soda bread

It’s the easiest and quickest bread to make when you’re pressed for time or when you simply don’t want to spend the whole day tending to your bread dough. It takes no more than a minute to put together, which means no kneading at all is required, and takes 45-50 minutes to bake. Within the hour, you have bread!

This quick bread is made without yeast and the leavening agent is only the baking soda, so how fresh your baking soda is, makes a difference in the resulting texture and flavor of the bread. I would suggest that you use a freshly opened package, because baking soda tends to get stale and less active easily and sometimes, even if it is still active and your bread rises, it may give off a strong and weird smell and taste.

Yield: 1 loaf (750- 800 g)

Ingredients
250 g all-purpose flour
250 g whole wheat flour
1 level tsp baking soda, sieved (to avoid lumps that won’t break and will cause an unpleasant flavor in places inside the bread)
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp caster sugar
420 ml buttermilk
Whole-wheat flour for dusting the dough and baking surface

Special equipment: fine sieve, wire whisk, baking sheet, baking paper


Preparation
Preheat your oven to 200°C.
Line a baking sheet with baking paper and dust with plenty of flour the center where you’re going to place the bread dough.

In a large bowl, add the flours and the sieved baking soda, and whisk. Add the salt and sugar, and whisk again. Make a well in the center with your fingers and pour in the buttermilk. Mix with your hands to moisten the flour for a few seconds with the buttermilk and empty the sticky dough on a clean and lightly floured work surface. Gently fold and roll the dough a couple of times to bring the mixture together and shape it roughly into a ball (you can use a dough scraper if you like). Don’t knead or fuss with the dough, just bring it together and form a ball. This whole process of making the dough will not take more than 1 minute.

Transfer the dough onto the floured baking paper, flatten the top gently with the palm of your hand and cut with a long knife the dough ball into four, almost all the way down. You do this in order to ensure that the inside of the bread will bake properly. Dust the bread with plenty of flour and place on the middle rack of the preheated oven.
Bake the bread for 45-50 minutes, until it has taken on a nice and rich, dark, golden-brown color (perhaps even darker than you would think it should have). It should also sound hollow when tapped at the bottom.

Take it out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool slightly.

Eat it while still warm with plenty of butter, use it to mop up the juices of your favorite stew, soup, braise or salad, have it for breakfast with your desired toppings, or have it plain.
It’s best eaten the day you bake it but it keeps well the next day.

Caramelized fennel, pear and blue cheese pizza with a walnut, garlic and parmesan spread

One of my most popular recipes here on the blog is my pizza dough and it makes me happy that so many people are enjoying it and making it for their family and friends. That’s what food blogging is all about for me. Sharing a recipe, releasing it out into this vast world of the internet without any expectations, and seeing people discovering it, using it and making it part of their cooking repertoire.

I make pizza fairly regularly and I always use the same recipe. It has never disappointed me and I have never felt the urge to dabble with another one. I hate ready-made pizza dough or pre-baked pizza bases so whenever we crave pizza, I pull out my stand mixer and make a batch. As I did yet again the other day.

We are usually purists when it comes to pizza, smearing the dough with tomato sauce (I swear by my recipe) and topping it with salami (soutzouki when I’m in Greece is never absent from my pizza or peinirli), different types of ham and cheeses, and various seasonal vegetables from time to time.

I rarely deviate from this, but when I do, I try to find ways in which to make it fun and different.

In this case, I smeared the dough with a walnut, garlic and parmesan spread which is highly addictive, I thinly sliced a fennel bulb and caramelized it in date syrup and olive oil and scattered it on top, added some crisp slices of fresh pear and crumbled some rich, creamy and tangy blue cheese over the top.

When it came out of the oven, I crumbled some more blue cheese to add a different texture and flavor, I ground some fresh black pepper, scattered a handful of fresh rocket leaves over the top and drizzled with a little olive oil for extra lusciousness.

The dough is all that it should be; perfectly bubbly, thin and crunchy with large holes and a soft, fluffy and chewy interior, while the toppings provide all sorts of flavors and textures. Sweet, umami, crispy, salty, nutty, fresh, creamy, caramelized, earthy, peppery. A marvelous pizza, definitely worth trying. Hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

Caramelized fennel, pear and blue cheese pizza with a walnut, garlic and parmesan spread

I love Roquefort cheese and that’s what I used here, but any sort of blue cheese would work.

A pizza stone makes all the difference with home-baked pizza because you get a beautifully charred and crusty pizza. I always use one, but if you don’t have it, a baking sheet will do.

I used a mandolin to slice the fennel and pears because it’s easier and faster than using a knife, but a well sharpened knife will also do the trick.

More kinds of pizza here.

Yield: 4 large pizzas

Ingredients
Pizza dough (recipe here)

for the caramelized fennel
2 large fennel bulbs, sliced 3mm thick
1 tsp date syrup (or Greek petimezi/grape molasses)
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt

for the walnut and garlic spread
60 g walnut halves
35 g parmesan (or grana padano)
1 garlic clove, peeled
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp red-wine vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper, 3-4 turns of the pepper mill
Salt (if needed)

2 large pears, sliced 5mm thick
160 g blue cheese (I used Roquefort)
6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
150 g fresh rocket leaves
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Flour or fine semolina, for sprinkling on top of the pizza stone or baking sheet

Special equipment: pizza stone or baking sheet, small food processor


Preparation
Μake and roll out the pizza dough following the recipe and instructions in this post.

for the caramelized fennel
Toss the sliced fennel with the olive oil in a bowl.
In a wide frying pan (preferably non-stick), add the fennel and sprinkle with some salt. Place the pan over a high heat and sauté the fennel, stirring continuously, for about 3 minutes or until it softens. Add the date syrup (or petimezi) and mix. Turn heat down to low and cook, stirring often, until the fennel has taken on a golden brown color and has caramelized.

for the walnut and garlic spread
In a small food processor, add the walnuts, parmesan, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and black pepper and process until you have a somewhat chunky spread. Give it a taste and add salt if needed. The parmesan is quite salty so you may not need to add salt at all.

The walnut spread can be kept in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap for 4-5 days.

Preheat your oven to 225ºC, making sure to put your pizza stone on the lower rack of the oven to preheat as well. If you’re using a baking sheet, place it on the middle rack.

If you have a pizza peel, it is best that you roll out the pizza onto that so it will be easier to transfer the pizza in the oven. If not, I suggest you roll out the pizza on a cutting board or other portable surface, so that it will be easier to transfer the pizza to the oven. In any case, make sure to flour well the surface so your dough doesn’t stick to it.

Add 3-4 tsp of the walnut spread (or enough to cover the dough in a thin layer) on your rolled out pizza dough and spread it around evenly leaving some space around the rim. Scatter evenly ¼ of the caramelized fennel over the top and add a few slices of pear in a single layer. Sprinkle with a little salt and crumble some blue cheese on top. Drizzle with a little olive oil (about ¾ tsp).

Once the oven has come up to temperature, sprinkle with flour or fine semolina your preheated pizza stone or baking sheet and transfer your pizza onto it.
Bake the pizza for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the dough is crunchy and bubbly.

While the first one is baking, prepare the next pizza. Do the same until you have made and baked all four pizzas.

Remove the pizza from the oven and onto a cutting board. Crumble a little more blue cheese on top and grind some black pepper over the top. Add a handful of rocket leaves and drizzle with a little more olive oil (about ¾ tsp). Cut into slices and serve immediately.