LAVASH CRACKERS AGAIN, WITH A ROASTED BELL PEPPER DIP…GUILT-FREE SNACKING!!

There’s something about these crackers. Never has guilt free snacking been this indulgent, this happy! Munch till you drop? These crackers take food addiction to a new level…no stops here. This is the only time I’ve actually repeated a Daring Baker challenge, that too, more than once. The vegan lavash crackers continue to entice me. The dip I made this time is inspired by the one I saw at Meeta @ What’s For Lunch Honey? . The look of it had me absolutely mesmerised…the Ajvar dip; a Middle Eastern eggplant & roasted bell pepper dip. However, I have quite an aversion for eggplant, & have never taken well to it for some strange reason. A lot of people love eggplant, & though I’ve been brave enough to try it a couple of times, it just didn’t work for me. So, I made my dip with roasted bell peppers, & threw in a few roasted tomatoes to add flavour. Meeta served the dip with crackers sprinkled with zatar, a herby middle eastern spice, which I enviously don’t have. I did have the other one she used, called sumac, a tangy spice made from red berries. The lavash recipe is as simple as crackers can possibly be, & once you master the art of getting the dough consistency right & rolling it out really thin, there’s nothing that can come between you & this addictive cracker. The first time I made them for the DB challenge, I did 2 variants, sweet & savoury, & they were both delicious. (I did a sweet cinnamon & brown sugar lavash with slivered almonds; the savoury version was with alternate rows of black & white sesame seeds…fun, fun, fun!)This time I made 2 savoury versions…a Middle Eastern & an Italian. The Middle Eastern ones were tamed into diamond shapes but the Italian ones were broken into shards. Addictive & yum, both of them! I preferred the ones with red chili flakes, roasted garlic & a sprinkling of Italian grill herbs. The jagged edges of the shards won me over!

Roasted Bell Pepper & Garlic Dip
as adapted from Ajvar Dip @ Meeta’s What’s For Lunch Honey?
Ingredients
Red bell peppers -3

Tomatoes -2

Garlic cloves – 3-4

A small bunch of chopped coriander leaves
Juice of 1/2 lime
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Olive oil – 1 tbsp
Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Green chili – 1-2/ finely chopped

Salt and fresh cracked black pepper Method:

Grill the peppers, tomatoes & garlic over an open flame as I did, or in a pre-heated oven.

Roast them till the skins have completely charred & blistered. Seal into a ziploc & leave for 10-15 minutes. Peel the skins off, deseed. Squeeze the garlic clove out. Place in a large bowl and mash or purée depending how chunky or fine you would like it to be. (I left mine chunky)

Add olive oil and the remaining ingredients. Season with sea salt & freshly ground black pepper. Store in air-tight containers in the fridge for up to a week.

Lavash Crackers

from the book, ‘The Art Of Extraordinary Bread’, by Peter Reinhart.
Ingredients
Flour – 1 1/2 cup
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Instant yeast – 1/2 tsp
Sugar – 1 tbsp (or agave syrup)
Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp
Water – 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 , at room temperature
Roasted garlic paste

Sumac, Italian herbs, Roasted garlic, Poppy seeds, Sesame seeds, Roasted red chili flakes or sea salt for toppings

Method:

• Stir together the flour, salt yeast, sugar, oil, and add just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water. Knead to a middle-firm dough, smooth & not sticky.
• Turn into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, & allow to rise at room temperature for about 90 minutes, until doubled in size.
• Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square & dust the top of the dough lightly with flour. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down. Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Line a sheet pan with baking parchment. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment. If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors.
• Preheat the oven to 200 C. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices if you are doing the Middle Eastern/sumac version (or poppy seeds, sesame seeds etc).
• For the Italian version, brush the rolled out dough lightly all over with roasted garlic paste, sprinkle with Italian grill herbs, red chili flakes & sea salt. Just a light sprinkling is enough.
• If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter & cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).
• When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Pull the cut one apart, or break the Italian one into shards & serve.

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