looks delicious does it not? guess what, it TASTES as delicious as it looks! what luck!
I made this as I have always wanted to make a bread that... well I really didn't have any specifications, i just wanted to make a bread. I chose a good starting point! The rosemary is both cooked in the bread and sprinkled on top, and with the onions... well its simply to die for!
I did follow the recipe right to the dot... one thing i did change: the amount of sea salt you are supposed to sprinkle on top. I used 2 tsp coarse sea salt on top rather than a full tbsp, maybe the sea salt i use is very salty, i dunno, but 1 tbsp was just too much though having a lot DOES look pretty, it doesn't taste as pretty and creates a nuisance when you have to pick it off. The recipe is from a book I bought a while back and never got around to really checking out... until recently where I have made over half the book! It is definitely a recipe book that is worth every penny! so delicious and so easy to follow and get great results from, also the ingredients are wild and crazy things! you can get them ALL in your local grocery store and more likely then not, you already have them in your fridge... so I will stop the suspense and just tell you what the darn book is already! It is called Vegetarian Bible: Fresh from the Garden. Buy it, its amazing.
anyways, if you don't want to buy it, here's the recipe
Flatbread with Onion and Rosemary
-1LB/450g (about 3 cups) white bread flour
-1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary, plus extra small sprigs for garnish
-5 tbsp olive oil
-1 1/4 c warm water
-1 red onion, finely sliced and separated into rings
-2 tsp coarse sea salt
1. mix the flour, yeast, and salt together in a mixing bowl (I used a large one, worked very well), then stir in the chopped rosemary. Make a well in the center. Mix 3 tbsp of the olive oil and the warm water in a pitcher and pour into the well. Gradually mix the liquid into the flour mixture with a round bladed knife (I used a 'skinny' spatula). Gather the mixture together with your hands to form a soft dough.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface (my dough was sorta wet .. very humid day, so I floured my surface a lot, just make sure you have extra flour on hand) and then knead until very smooth and elastic, approx. 8-10 minutes. Return the dough to mixing bowl, cover with a dish cloth (clean of course) and let rise for 45 minutes- 1 hour, or until doubled in size. Turn out and knead again for 1 minute or until smooth (if you noticed that when you kneaded it the second time the dough lost some of its.. largeness a.k.a. deflated, its cool, mine did too and it will rise up again, no worries!)
3. preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit/ 200 Celsius. Oil a cookie sheet ( I used one of those stone things). Gently roll the dough out to a circle (or oval, or whatever shape sorta resembles one of the two) about 12 in/30 cm in diameter. Transfer to the cookie sheet and cover with a dish cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 20-30 minutes.
4. Make holes about 2in/5cm apart all over the surface of the dough with the handle of a wooden spoon. Spread the onion rings over the dough and drizzle with remainder of olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake the dough in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown (mine was in for about 17 minutes, so start checking early!). Five minutes before the end of the cooking time garnish with the rosemary sprigs. transfer to a cooling rack for a few minutes, then serve the bread warm.
and that is all, enjoy!
