Sunday, September 5, 2010

Stuffed Mutant Flatbread - A Starch Lovers Dream

Stuffed Mutant Flatbread - Yummy!
I'm so proud and impressed with myself that I can barely contain my excitement!   I was looking through some Indian cookbooks this afternoon looking for a flatbread recipe to accompany the mashed eggplant I had planned on making tonight when I came across an appealing sounding stuffed flatbread.  I've never attempted anything like this but after my success with cinnamon rolls last week, making a bread based recipe didn't seem so daunting.  I knew we had a couple of boiled potatoes in the fridge leftover from breakfast and the idea took root then and there.  I didn't have any whole wheat roti flour so I ended up improvising a recipe based on the ones I had skimmed.  The filling started out faithfully following an actual Indian recipe but quickly veered off into a completely different direction when I decided to dump some sauteed shallots, garlic and tomato into the potato mixture which had been destined for another project.  Oooh, I had a very good feeling about this.   The smell coming out of the pan was awesome and I wasn't wrong.  This is the best thing I've made in a very long time. 

The great thing about this type of recipe is you can basically season the potatoes with anything that hits your fancy.  Or even add other veggies, really the sky's the limit.   The only thing you need to be careful about is adding lumpy ingredients because when you roll the dough out with the filling encased you don't want anything bursting through.   I experienced a few tomato bits squeezing out the edges.  

Stuffed Mutant Flatbread

Filling:
2 medium cooked potatoes (I used leftovers)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp paprika
2 or 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
pepper to taste

Saute:
1 shallot chopped
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 tomato finely diced
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mash up the potatoes with a fork or your hands and mix in the remaining ingredients including the sauteed veggies.  

Dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 to 3 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1 tsp salt
1 cup water

The dough was very simple, just mix the flour, ground flax seed and salt and mix in the water. Knead for a few minutes until the dough is smooth. Cover and leave it until you're ready and then divide it into 8 little balls.

Have some flour handy.  Take each ball, coat it in a little flour, flatten it with your hand and then roll it out into a circle about 3 inches wide.   Add approximately 1/4 cup of the potato mixture, pinch up the dough around the filling and seal it inside the ball.   Gently roll out the ball into a 5 or 6 inch circle.   
 
Heat a cast iron pan on medium heat.   Add enough vegetable oil until it is lightly coated.   Pan fry the bread for about 1 to 2 minutes until there are gorgeous brown spots on the bottom and then flip it over for about the same amount of time.  I brushed on a tiny bit more oil on top before I flipped it because I didn't want the bread to be too dry.  You can pat the bread a little with a spatula as it's cooking so browns evenly.  It will puff up a little as it cooks.  Serve warm or at room temperature and enjoy!  I don't know how well they store because we wolfed them down immediately.  My daughter liked the bread more than the filling because of the bits of shallot.   She has a supernatural tongue that can sense any bit of onion-like material and spit it out no matter how small.  

This is supposed to be a circle - Hah.

In the cast iron pan!

10 comments:

  1. Actually, they WERE fun to make!

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  2. I have a supernatural tongue that likes to take in as much onion material as a dish will offer. ;-) I think I'd use whole wheat flour but these look delicious. You're a REAL cook!

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  3. Awww, thanks Lisa!
    I love onions too. I couldn't live without them.

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  4. I LOVE onions, too. I was so surprised to find them on a list of the top five foods people hate (along with mushrooms, gosh, I love mushrooms!)

    Gosh, Lee, you are AMAZING! Just to attempt the recipe, wow, kudos--and then that it turned out so beautifully AND you did this in the midst of buying a house. Dang, girl, you rock! ;-)

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  5. Onions were on a list of the top five foods people hate????? I could never live without onions. I put them in everything much to my daughters disgust!

    This flatbread was so good, I want to make it again right now!

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  6. It is a very appetizing dish. . .

    ruma

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  7. Thanks Ruma, they were so tasty I made them for dinner again tonight with slightly different spices in the potato mixture.

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  8. Oh, I should get you some of my tomato chutney, it would be the best dip for those breads! Hmmn, can't send recipe because I have been sworn to secrecy, but it is a lot of onion and tomato and Indian spice cooked up - one of my fav things of late. good job on those flatbreads - yum yum!

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  9. I would love some of your tomato chutney but if you're sworn to secrecy maybe I can find another recipe to try! I am quite interested in making these flatbreads over and over again. Thanks for your comment!

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Comments are welcome!