100% whole wheat curried flatbread. homemade bread.

After traveling for over 2 months this winter, I learned a lot about what I miss about the home kitchen. I moved around almost every week and could not realistically carry my whole pantry of baking supplies and spices with me in my backpack, so the food I ate was simple. This was pretty easy to do in Hawaii, where juicy papayas and avocados grow all over and easily satisfy a low-budget traveller like myself. 

Halfway through the trip, however,  I was craving foods like kimchi and sprouts and of course, freshly baked bread. These things that take time and patience and a home base to create. I yearned for my own kitchen space to make a mess and experiment in without intruding on my hosts. Of course, my day to day experience was full of hiking and swimming and learning and failing how to surf, so I might not have wanted to spend hours babysitting my rising bread inside. In any case, it felt great coming back and rewinding into winter (still very mild) here in Oregon and cozying up next to a warm oven full of my kind of bread. 

This bread is from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Their approach is unique and very useful for a busy schedule, as there is no kneading involved and the recipe makes enough for baking multiple loaves a week. Very versatile, very simple, and very delicious!


So they provide some 'master recipes,' which can then be used for a variety of other breads, like focaccia, pizzas, and flatbreads. Which brings me to this recipe: Algerian flatbread, or msemmen. I used their 100% whole wheat with olive oil recipe on page 81, found here  via google books. The only ingredients are whole wheat flour, salt, vital wheat gluten, yeast, olive oil, and water.  

Msemmen are delicious, flaky flatbreads, that are traditionally eaten with hot mint tea in the morning or afternoon. The yeast-risen dough is rolled out into a pancake, rubbed with spices and oil, and then rolled up into a coil and flattened again and cooked on the stove top. I added extra spices, especially turmeric, which gave this bread a gorgeously rich color and spicy flavor. Feel free to mix up the spices, adding more or less of what you like. Use whole spices if you can, and grind them fresh for a brighter, deeper flavor. I added some black pepper, which aids in the absorption of the beneficial components of turmeric, chiefly curcumin. 

Since we are talking about turmeric's health benefits and absorption in the body, I might as well add the importance of fat in the whole story. Since curcumin is fat-soluble, it needs a fat to dissolve into in order to be absorbed in the body. The olive oil used in this recipe is a great fat to carry turmeric's wonderful anti-inflammatory components, and it tastes delicious too. Read more about turmeric's health benefits and absorption here from the Huffington Post or here from Natural Society.

So this bread has it all: 100% whole wheat goodness, healthful extra virgin olive oil, super-spices, and extreme tastiness! Serve the flatbread with a variety of dips or toppings, including but not limited to hummus (homemade here!), yogurt (or raita), lemons, cilantro, pepper jelly, chutney, roasted veggies, etc. It is also delicious on its own. Experiment and enjoy! 

    

100% Whole Wheat Curried Flatbread (Msemmen)


Whole Wheat Olive Oil Bread Master Recipe 
Click here for full recipe. 

(Makes enough dough for at least 4 1-pound loaves, or 16 msemmen)

Ingredients

7 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast
1 tbsp kosher salt
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
3 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup olive oil

Method

1. Whisk all dry ingredients in a large bowl together. Mix the water and olive oil together (they obviously won't mix very well, but just churn them up a bit). Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until everything is incorporated. You don't need to knead!

2. Cover dough with a damp cloth and let rise at room temperature for 2 hours, or until it rises and collapses. 

3. Refrigerate dough in a lidded container for use in the next 7 days, or use immediately. The dough is easier to work with when refrigerated. From here you can make a darn good loaf of simple, whole wheat bread, or continue on to the msemmen instructions below. 


Msemmen Recipe

(makes 4 12-in msemmen)

Ingredients

1 pound master recipe dough
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 1/2 tbsp ground turmeric
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less for spiciness)
1 tsp sea salt
8 tbsp olive oil for the skillet

Method

1. Mix the 1/2 cup olive oil with the spices and salt. 

2. Grab a 1-pound (grapefruit sized) piece of dough from the batch and dust with flour. Separate into 4 peach sized balls, shaping it by stretching  the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go. Dust a work surface with some flour and flatten the ball with a rolling pin to about 1/8 in thickness. 

3. Evenly spread 1/4 of the spice-oil mixture on the flattened dough, leaving 1/2 inch border on all sides. Roll the dough up into a log, then coil the rope tightly around itself (as seen in photo above). Place coiled dough on floured surface and let rest for 20 minutes. Repeat flattening and coiling with the 3 remaining pieces of dough.

4. Once the dough has rested, roll out the coil into 1/8-inch thick round. 

5. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat on the stove top until oil is hot but not smoking. 

6. Drop rolled dough into the skillet, decrease heat to medium, and cover to trap the steam and heat. Check for doneness with a spatula 2-5 minutes. Flip the flatbread when the underside is browned and cook another 2-5 minutes until the flatbread feels firm and looks browned on both sides. 

7. Allow to cool slightly. 

8. Repeat with remaining dough, using 2 tbsp olive oil to cook for each flatbread. Serve warm plain or with yogurt and cilantro (as seem in photo). Enjoy!