Before I turn the stage over to Devaki as she kicks off 2011, I wish to take a moment to thank you ALL for the heartwarming comments that you have left me. I enjoyed reading each and everyone and never expected that you would take this kindly, my attempt at a little satire at the expense of my wife!
Arigatoo Gozaimasu
SD
Cyber space is currently overloaded with talks of salad and healthy soups and New Years resolutions. It's enough to bring a grown girl to tears!
So what does this girl do? Brush the dust off last year's resolutions & bake bread of course!
You might say that I am obsessed with brioche and you just might be right. I can't help it - no matter what I do with it it turns out fabulous! It's like I have my own personal brioche fairy looking out for me and sprinkling 'perfect brioche fairy dust' all over my fixings. I bet we can all use one of those!
Anyway so I wake up this morning and lo & behold - no bread at home. Not even a crumb! So as I pull out the eggs, I also pull out my container of brioche dough wondering what in God's name I'm going to do with all these eggs and brioche dough.
Anyway, as life goes the light bulb goes off in my head and I recall one of Batali's recipes where he had sprinkled some fresh herbs & green onions over pizza dough and ended up with some amazing kind of focaccio. The genius of the man that he is shared the most amazing tip for great, buttery flaky flat breads - you know what that is? - drizzling copious amounts of olive oil on dough! Yeah that's it - who would have thought something that simple & rudimentary would separate a great flat bread from its mediocre brethren?
Anywho, since I have the brioche dough, I'm not about to make any other kind of dough so that's my starting point. Open up this vegetable drawer then the next, look behind the sour cream, find the cheese & oh look! here's the spring onions and what do we have?
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (the 2 year aged good stuff), fresh rosemary, green onions, grated Romano cheese & lots of good quality olive oil - not forgetting the brioche dough of course. I think that will go pretty well with some scrambled eggs with chives don't you think? A nice breakfast coming right up!
For those of you out there who have paid no heed to me whatsoever this past year and do not have a stash of brioche dough tucked away in the refrigerator well, you'll just have to make a batch from scratch. So lets go!
Dough -
To begin this task, recruit a large mixing bowl or container or paraat , large enough to mix and knead the brioche dough.
Assemble the ingredients - warm water, dry active yeast, sugar, honey, salt, eggs and copious amounts of melted butter ( 1 1/2 sticks or 6 oz).
Put 3/4 cup warm water (110 deg F) into a bowl, add sugar and dissolve. Empty the contents of 1 packet dry and active yeast into it. Stir. Proof the yeast & if it is active it will look something like this in about 10 minutes. If it doesn't, it means it is dead and a trip to the grocers is warranted.
Pool the flour into the utensil. Add the yeast water, salt, eggs, honey and melted butter.
With washed and clean hands, work and knead the dough.
No doubt about it - brioche dough is a soft gooey dough and I had to fight the urge to empty another cup of flour into this goopy mess (not to mention ignore the palpitations)
Be rest assured, this goop is what we want. The more flour you add to this soft dough, tougher the bread you will end up with.
Cover with a moist cheesecloth (or a cotton cloth) and set aside to rise in a warm place for 2 hours.The dough should now look swollen like the image on the right.
At this point transfer into a container with a lid, not air tight, and transfer to the refrigerator. Once the dough has chilled ( 1 hr minimum, 2-3 hours is great, overnight is awesome!) it is ready for use.
Place the chilled dough ball and liberally sprinkle flour all over the dough ball. Spray a baking stone or baking sheet with non-stick baking spray. Using fingers and the rolling pin, roll and stretch out the dough to cover the entire surface of the baking sheet or stone.
Preheat the oven at 400 deg F
Prepare the other ingredients -
Rosemary - Pull the leaves off a sprig and roughly chop with a knife.
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese - Grate & set aside
Romano Cheese - Grate and set aside
Green onions - Cut and discard root tips. Chop the white parts & green leaves into circles and set aside.
Olive oil - Set aside.
Cook's Note - If you notice, I have skipped a very important step in the baking process when using a baking stone - preheating the stone. It is deliberate. In this case do not preheat the stone.
The week after I made this, I wanted to make it for our friends visiting from Chicago and I went for the whole shebang and made the pizza dough from scratch & preheated the stone - the results - close but no cigar! Nothing like the results I got using brioche dough & not preheating the stone. Go figure!
This is what I think - when I placed the dough on the hot baking stone it sealed the dough pores (does dough have pores?) on the bottom so giving it a crisp bottom - which is great for pizza but for the flat bread I was looking for a flaky, buttery kind of bread which meant that the bottom of the bread needed to allow for the olive oil seeping though. Anyway that's what my logic says.
Using a pastry brush, liberally apply olive oil on the surface of the dough. Sprinkle the Romano cheese and then the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on top.
Sprinkle the rosemary & spring onions all over the cheese. Drizzle the remaining olive oil all over the flat bread slowly and as evenly as you can.
Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until the top is a golden brown.
Cut into slices or square and serve warm.
Flaky buttery bread with cheese melted into the crust, just the right amount of green onions and the lovely aroma of rosemary...swoon...
Recipe for
Brioche Flat bread with Parmigiano-Reggiano & Romano Cheeses, Rosemary & Green Onions
Preparation time - (Dough) 3 hours or Overnight
Cooking time - 25 minutes
Serves 4-6
Shopping list
The topping -
1/3 cup good quality olive oil
3 stalks green onion
1 tbs fresh rosemary leaves
1 cup hard, aged, shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
3/4 cup grated Romano cheese
The dough:
4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 warm water (110 deg F)
1 packet dry active yeast
1 tbs white sugar
2 tbs honey
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 1/2 sticks or 6 oz butter, melted
For the wash:
1 egg white
1 tbs cold water
Preparation -
The Brioche dough:
Yeast - In the warm water, add the white sugar and dissolve. Pour the contents of the dry active yeast and stir. Set aside for 10 minutes, till frothy.
Dough - In a large mixing bowl or container with a lid, gather the flour. Add the warm yeast water, honey, salt, eggs and melted butter. With washed and clean hands work and knead the dough well (the brioche dough is a soft gooey dough)
Cover with a moist cheesecloth and set aside to rise in a warm place for 2 hours.The dough should now look swollen.
Transfer to the refrigerator. Once the dough has chilled (approx 1 hr) it is ready for use. Separate the dough into 2 balls. Return one to the refrigerator for later use.
Rosemary - Pull the leaves off a sprig and roughly chop with a knife.
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese - Grate & set aside
Romano Cheese - Grate and set aside
Green onions - Cut and discard root tips. Chop the white parts & green leaves into circles and set aside.
Olive oil - Measure out & set aside.
Cooking method -
Preheat oven to 400 deg F
Place the chilled dough ball and liberally sprinkle flour all over the dough ball.
Spray a baking stone or baking sheet with non-stick baking spray. Using fingers and the rolling pin, roll and stretch out the dough to cover the entire surface of the baking sheet stone.
Using a pastry brush, liberally apply olive oil on the surface of the dough. Sprinkle the Romano cheese and then the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on top.
Sprinkle the rosemary & spring onions all over the cheese. Drizzle the remaining olive oil all over the flat bread slowly and as evenly as you can.
Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until the top is a golden brown.
Cut into slices and serve warm.
Enjoy!
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