Khorasan Bread

Being a little sensitive to gluten (abdominal bloating, cramping and excessive gas production  that blows my carbon footprint out of the water) I am interested in baking breads that are more Daffodil friendly.

Over at "Ethic" (I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!!! post to follow) in Woodend, Victoria, I came across Khorasan flour sitting in a big bucket. I had never heard of it before, but that has never stopped me from purchasing things before. After all, isn't that what google is for? Buy first, then google to see what you can do with it!

So I hit the net and did some research of Khorasan. It is an ancient wheat grain originating in the Fertile Crescent. It is a lower yielding grain per acre and very fragile to mould and disease. On paper, this looks like an agriculture disaster, however, because of its frailties, it has not been aggressively cultured and bred for vigor or yield. So its actual structure has changed very little since the beginning of agriculture. It is a very old grain. It may just have slipped under Monsantos radar.

On the gluten front, as with many other ancient grains, it is more friendly to the sensitive gluten gut. It is not coeliac friendly, however. Sorry guys. So after doing some research into the history of Khorasan, I had to find something to cook. Otherwise it would just sit looking all smug and eclectic in my pantry. One recipe that sprang up on Google was "Egyptian Flat Bread"

We were planning on home whizzed Falafels, with home whizzed hoummus and some vegetable matter. Egyptian flat bread was a timely find!

So the recipe we followed for Egyptian Flat Bread - courtesy of Our Daily Salt

2 cups of Khorasan flour

1 cup of warm water

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of dry active yeast.

We popped the water and salt in our thermomix to heat  at 37 degrees, however, you can just put it in a food mixer to whizz it. We then threw in the Khorosan flour and yeast and mixed at speed 6 for 10 seconds to mix and then 3 minutes on knead. For those of you who have a food mixer, use it as you normally would for bread, or simply mix it by hand and knead plentifully.

Turn the dough out into  bowl to prove for 1 to 2 hours. Roll out to approx. 1cm thick. Have the oven preheated to 180 degree oven. We baked ours on a heated pizza stone. Bake for about 25 mins. The kitchen will smell delicious. Turn out onto a bread board and try to wait for it to cool down enough to handle.

I love this kind of bread. Crunchy crust and chewy centre with a nutty flavour and it was divine on its own, with a smear of goats fetta and also smothered with hoummus, tomato salsa and falafels.


DELISH!!!

I plan on having some Egyptian Flat Bread for breakfast tomorrow morning topped with some fetta, poached eggs, caramelised onions and squirt of lemon juice.