Lavash - gorgeous "pouf" bread

Lavash is probably one of the things, you miss the most, when you come home from vacation. You might know it from the restaurants as a paper-thin bread, you get while waiting for your food. It usually comes piping hot, straight from the oven and on an oblong pizza spatula. The hot temperature gives it the characteristic warm bubble of air inside. The kids think it’s so fun to puncture it and tear the bread apart. They have gradually learned to respect the hot air inside, so they don’t burn their fingers. It’s quite funny, that it is so popular. But there is just something special about Turkish Lavash bread, that makes it perfectly suited for almost everything – especially to dip in different sauces. And that is quite important, when we talk about Turkish food. For there are so many, many sauces, dips, salads – call them what you want. In Turkey these things are mostly known as Meze – all those beautiful little dishes often use as starters – as a kind of Turkish tapas.

It’s easy:

Lavash is quite brilliant. And it’s amazingly easy to make. For many years I did not dare to give it a try, because I do not have a real stoneoven to bake the bread in. Completely silly, for they gets (almost) as good in a conventional oven – it has to be hot enough. The grill could also be used as the temperature can get quite high, but for some reason those pizza-stone always breakes for us, so currently we don’t have one.

I made the bread the other day along with several different kinds of dip, a good chickpea-salad and small meat-skewers. Uuush it was really good. There were two breads, but they were eaten faster, than I could even turn around myself. So if you are more than 2 adults and 2 ferocious kids, then might consider to double the portion.

For 2 breads, you’ll need:

25 g yeast

½ teaspone salt

½ tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup of hand-luke water

approximately 250-260 g wheat flour

2 tablespoons yogurt and 1 egg yolk for brushing

nigella-seeds and sesame seeds to sprinkle on top of the bread (can be. omitted)

How to make Turkish Lavash bread:

Hold on – because this is really super easy and it’s fast. Are you ready?? Dissolve the yeast with sugar and salt in the lukewarm water and add the flour. Knead the dough until it’s smooth and delicious. You can easily use a mixer, it takes about 8-10 min. Let it rise until doubled in size in a covered bowl for about 1 ½ to 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 250º – remember to let baking sheets, stone or whatever you use in. The oven must be HOT.

Next, divide the dough into two equal parts and roll each piece in an elongated shape with aprox. 1 cms thickness. I usually roll it even thinner and then fold each once in the middle. Then it’s easier to raise. Place the dough on a baking sheet with wax paper. Mix egg yolk and yogurt in a bowl and brush the bread with the mixture. Sprinkle with nigellafrø and sesame seeds if you want to use it (but it tastes so quite well, try). Bake for 6-8 minutes on the top shelf of the oven. Serve immediately with the two dips.

Aubergine salad is really good, but otherwise you can super fast just make two dip. Yep that’s right – quickly. Just take a look:

I usually make Ezme to these breads as it’s super easy and you can make it as spicy and strong as you want. The recipe comes here.

Ezme:

2 large ripe, red tomatoes – take out the seeds

1 small onion

1 long, green Sivri-pepper (very spice turkish pepper)

1 teaspoon tomato puree (and possibly 1 teaspoon hot pepper puree, if you like it spicy)

flat-leaf parsley

-evt little red chili flakes – as you like it

salt and pepper

Chop it all really fine and mix it together – season with salt and pepper – or toss it all in the blender if you are impatient. And that’s it, you are don! Put it in the fridge, until you need to serve it.