A frying-pan flatbread for a hot week
The kitchen thermometer said 29 °C at nine in the evening, and I am not putting the oven on to 250 °C in that. The starter, meanwhile, has never been happier and doubles in about three hours, which means a lot of discard and nowhere to put it. This is where it goes.
| Ingredient | Percent | Grams |
|---|---|---|
| Plain flour | 100% | 300 |
| Water, cold | 45% | 135 |
| Plain yoghurt | 25% | 75 |
| Starter discard | 20% | 60 |
| Olive oil | 5% | 15 |
| Salt | 2% | 6 |
The yoghurt is mostly water, so the dough handles like something around 65% hydration even though the water line says 45%. That is the one place where baker's percentages need a bit of interpretation: anything wet counts towards how the dough feels, whatever column it sits in.
Mix it, knead for two minutes until it is smooth, and leave it covered for two hours. In this heat the discard does wake up a little and the dough puffs slightly, but this is not a risen bread and does not need to be. Divide into six pieces of about 98 g and roll each one out to roughly 20 cm across and a few millimetres thick.
Heat a dry frying pan until a flick of water skitters across it. Lay a flatbread in, wait about ninety seconds until large bubbles rise and the underside has brown patches, flip, another minute. Brush with oil or melted butter as it comes out and stack them under a tea towel so they stay soft.
We ate them in the garden with sliced tomatoes from the pots by the fence, torn basil, flaky salt and the last of a jar of olive oil, while the sky failed to get dark. Six flatbreads, two people, nothing left.
The first one was terrible, as the first one always is: pan not hot enough, pale and leathery. The other five were fine. I keep thinking I will learn to wait for the pan, and I keep not learning it.