Need a good simple flat bread recipe!

[CookinBenny]

Hey whats going on?

My Buddy is opening his dream place next monday and im the sous chef. For our steak sandwich at lunch we were thinking a nice flat bread would go nice with it. We also want it to be able to double and be served with our hummus app. at night. What i need is a simple, but versatile flat bread recipe that dosent use a pre-ferement or a biga or anthing. Any recipes would be greatly appreciated thanks tons!!!

[cognitivefun]

I use 3 cups flour (all-purpose is fine, or all-purpose), about 1 cup yogurt, 1 tspn fine sea salt, 1 tspn instant yeast, 2 eggs, and enough milk, into the food processor so that the dough clears the sides of the bowl and I process for 45 secondss.

Heat oven to 550F. with pizza stone in it.

Then I scrape the dough into an oiled bowl, cover and let double in bulk. Divide into 6 balls, cover, and roll out each into about 1/3" inch thick tear-drop shape. Cover.

About 1 hour later the oven is hot enough and I open the oven, carefully put two naans on the stone. 4-5 minutes later, turn with tongs and do the other side for about 2 minutes.

They come out wonderfully.

[Gabriel Lewis]

Most of the flatbreads I make are unleavened and then cooked on a flat cast iron pan of some sorts. A basic flatbread would consist of your choice of fat, water, and salt. Mix flour and salt together in a bowl, cut fat into flour until the mixture looks like coarse meal with some pea size lumps, and add water until dough pulls from the side of the bowl, knead until smooth and elastic. Spread a very small amount of oil on dough, cover with plastic wrap or a moist towel and let rest for a half hour. When dough is done resting, seperate dough into balls corresponding to the size of flat bread you want, squish them into small patties and then coat them with flour, roll out to desired thickness and diamater on a floured board, and then cook on a preheated cast iron pan (flipping once) until done.

Of course, there is a lot to work with here. You can choose to omit the fat or include it, fiddle with the type of fat, type of liquid, or type of flour or flours. You can roll them thin or thick, you can have them puff or not puff...

Flatbread with a steak? Doesn't really seem like an intuitive pairing to me, what sort of steak is this? If you want it to go with hummus I'd probably do a middle-eastern or indian style flat bread, I don't know too much about pitas but I'd be happy to share what I know about Indian flatbreads if you're interested.

[andiesenji]

I don't know about serving flatbread with steak. Perhaps an "artisanal" or rustic bread would be my choice.

However for serving with hummus, I have a very easy recipe for pita that turns of well, can be doubled or tripled and is very tasty. I posted it originally in the Carnitas thread a couple of years ago and I know some egulleteers made them. It uses the instant years, doesn't require a starter and if you are working in a fairly warm commercial kitchen, it may take as little as 45 minutes to rise.

As posted in the Carnitas thread.

Once you find out how easy it is to make them you won't go back to the commercial ones.

Here is my recipe:

Pita Bread

2-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons rapid-rise or "instant" yeast

2 tablespoons oil, olive or canola or grape seed.

1-1/4 cups water room temp.

Measure the flour (unsifted) into a large bowl.

add the salt, yeast and oil.

Make a "well" in the center of the flour and pour in the water.

Using your hands, bring the flour into the water and continue mixing until a ball of dough is formed.

Turn out onto a floured board and knead for about 15 minutes.

(If you have a mixer that has a dough hook you can place all ingredients into the mixing bowl, blend until ingredients form a ball then continue mixing for about 10 minutes with the mixer set on lowest speed.)

The dough should feel silky and soft but not flabby, when a thumb is pressed into the dough it should fill in quickly.

Spray the inside of a large Zip-lok bag with Pam or similar oil spray.

Place the dough ball into the bag and seal.

Set aside to rise until it has doubled in size.

At normal room temp this should be about an hour to an hour and a half.

Turn the dough out onto the floured board, knead 3 or 4 times then stretch into a fat cylinder.

Cut in half, then cut the halves in half, and so on, so that you end up with 8 pieces of dough.

Roll the pieces into balls and press flat into a disk.

Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with oil, place disks on it then cover with another sheet of plastic wrap. Set aside to rest for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 475 degrees, F.

Using a rolling pin, flatten the disks on a lightly floured board and roll into about a 6-inch circle.

They should be about 1/4 inch thick or slightly less.

If you have a baking stone you can bake the pita directly on it, mist the stone with water before placing the pita on the hot stone then mist the pita.

Otherwise, place the pita on a lightly oiled baking sheet and place on center shelf in oven.

Mist the pita and close the oven door.

Watch closely. In about 3-4 minutes the pita will have blown up like a baloon and are done. They should not brown, but might show a little color around the edges.

Immediately remove them from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool.

Depending on the size of your oven you should be able to bake 3 or 4 at a time.

You have to leave room above the pita for them to expand.

To reheat, fold into a kitchen towel and heat in microwave for 30 seconds.

[CookinBenny]

Its going to be more of a shaved steak sandwich, it will be sauteed with carmelized onions and peppers almost like a philly but not quite. Then wrap in up in the flat bread and i think it would be delicious. Also does anyone have a good naan recipe?

[cognitivefun]

mine is a naan recipe.

[CookinBenny]

awesome sounds great im gonna try cooking some up this week when we start prepping

[cognitivefun]

I like the idea of naan with steak. Actually it was Bakers Square that was serving it this way if I recall correctly. A tasty dish.