I’ve always thought that making bread and pizza was an art reserved for those who had the gift for it and that the rest of us mortals could only watch them in awe while they punched and stretched that unreachable dough of talent. But, one day, I discovered that even though I sucked at making spongy crunchy loaves, I could probably get by with another option: flat bread. A whole new world opened up for me and I have been making it and enjoying it ever since.
Flat bread is one of the easiest, quickest, most interesting things you can make. And it will certainly surprise you, your family and guests.
Here’s essentially how you can start, but I tell you, the more you experiment, the better your bread will get.
This is how I make it:
+ Get a bowl and mix warm water and oil in the same proportion (I like olive oil but you can use almond oil, canola oil, your favorite). Use, for example, a small cup of each.
+ Add oats, wheat/oat bran, and your “flour” until the mix does not stick to your fingers that much anymore.
Now I put the word FLOUR between inverted commas because I’d like you to forget about that white bleached empty crap they sell at supermarkets. Of course you can mix some white flour in but make your bread nutritious and fun! At least use wholewheat flour!! There’s a whole range you can buy in health stores and supermarkets if you live in a biggish or cool city: soybean, rice, lentils, chickpeas, green peas, lentil, almond flour, etc. If you have a couple of bucks to spare and want to make a great investment, there are blender-type machines that you can buy second hand on the internet that will allow you to mill anything yourself, you can make flour from any kind of nuts and grain you like: barley, cashews, pine nuts, how about that!! The minimalist sailor’s got one on Splendid, it’s the VitaMix : )
+ Add salt and surprises (seeds/nuts/herbs/olives/etc, whatever you have in the pantry and looks tempting, tasty and crunchy). My favorite mix is chopped walnuts, roasted sunflower and sesame seeds, ground chili and sliced olives. If you want to add some sweetness to it, of course you can add raisins for example.
+ Now don’t worry if your mix gets too dry or too sticky. Just add more water or flour as necessary. The dough should be pretty moist, but when you see you can handle it easily then it’s ready. It’s really something that takes 5 minutes, flat bread does not need kneading or rising.
+ Take a little ball in the palm of your hand, apply pressure to make it look like a disc, and make it flatter and flatter turning it around with your fingers. If you prefer, you can put flour on the counter / table / chopping board and use a rolling pin to make it flat. Alex likes to use his tortilla press for it (it works great!!).
+ Another great thing about flat bread is that you don’t need to use the oven. You can cook them in 2 minutes in a small non-stick frying pan. Just put the pan on the stove, put the flat bread on it, and when it does not stick to it anymore (or when you smell it’s getting toasted and lovely) flip it around and cook the other side.
+ Keep changing the recipe, experiment and have a more nutritious, delicious existence.
And you can easily use your flat bread as pizza dough. Make it very thin and bake it with sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, blue cheese, olives, anything you like!
OUR MOST FAVORITE DIPS
Now don’t be a knob, we don’t mean dips that you can buy in a jar or a bottle, we mean dips you make at home!!
1) In first position, unchallenged by any other because of its wonderful creamy taste and its nutritional power….
Hummus
+ Leave some chickpeas soaking in water during the night (we strongly suggest you soak quite a lot). Boil them until they are soft. It’s best to use a pressure pot if you have one because they take a while.
+ Process them with garlic (raw, toasted or fried), ground chili, salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
+ Of course you can add other things, whatever you fancy, some ideas: mustard, chopped mint leaves, honey, nuts, go crazy! One element at the time of course or it will most certainly taste yucky!!
+ Put it in the fridge for a while and eat it with flat bread, crackers, chips or with your index finger (the best spoon in the world, while nobody is watching you can make the bowl look as clean as new!!)
2) Following pretty close because of its strong flavor and crunchy surprises….
Our simple, special, beloved olive paste
+ Process some black olives and add some chopped walnuts or almonds, crunchy fried garlic and sliced sun-dried tomatoes in oil (we do buy these in a jar at the moment). AMAZING!!
3) And last but not least, in third place, a classic, fresh, zesty, spicy…
Guacamole
+ Peel and process a couple of soft avocados with a fork
+ Chop an onion, some chili peppers, dice a couple of tomatoes and mix it all in
+ Add freshly squeezed lemon juice, salt and pepper to your liking and voila!
Ah, I forgot to tell you! The great thing about the tortilla press is that you can make the bread so thin it becomes a big cracker! But even if you don’t have one, you can cut a big Ziploc and use the two sheets of plastic to put the flat bread in between and press on it without it sticking or breaking.
Corn flour is wonderful too for arepas, tortillas or, if you fold them and put something inside, you can turn them into corn empanadas and fry or bake them ; )
The recipes sound great!
Cheap, easy, quick, healthy & yummy!!
Try them, invite friends over, open a bottle of wine, put on some nice music ; )
Hey Carla, nice writing. Enjoying reading about your takes on life and recipes. Alex is right about having some competition about reading audience. lol. I made a tortilla press recently and use it quite a bit for making tortillas out of masa flour. mmmgood. Curious to hear about any recipes that you guys use for fresh fish that Alex catches when he goes spear fishing…kinds of fish? Do you guys ever have to worry about cigutera with the reef fish?
Hi there,
Thanks for the compliments : )
The tortilla press rocks, doesn’t it? Try other types of dough, you’ll be surprised at all the delicious new options!
There is no ciguatera in Panama, which is one of the reasons why Alex likes it so much (there are no hurricanes either, anchoring is free, you’re allowed to stay for a whole year and renew your permit as many times as you like without leaving the country, etc). So we can really eat anything we catch. My favorite fish are sierras and barracudas because I like firm, white meat, the kind that makes you have to floss or use a toothpic right after. Alex likes groupers, snappers and his favorite are the triggerfish. We also like lobsters a lot.
We usually fry our fish and use paper towels to get rid of most of the oil, we like it very crunchy. But we also like sushi, ceviche and fish soup or fish sauce.
I’m getting hungry now!!
Have a lovely day!
C