Pastry & pies Fasting
Somun flatbread
A round bakery flatbread the size of a plate, torn warm at iftar or alongside grilled meat.
Recipe from Туѓино Јабано
- Prep
- 1 hr 40 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Total
- 1 hr 52 min
- Fasting
- Suitable
Ingredients 8 ingredients
Method
- Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water and leave it until it foams.
- Add the flour, salt and oil and mix to a wet, slack dough. Work it in the bowl with a wet hand rather than on the board; it is too soft to knead in the usual way.
- Cover and leave it to rise for an hour, folding the dough over on itself once halfway through.
- Turn it onto a well-floured surface, divide into four and shape each piece into a loose round without knocking the air out.
- Prove the rounds under a cloth for 30 minutes while the oven and a heavy tray heat to their maximum, at least 250°C.
- Flatten each round with wet fingertips to a disc about 20 cm across, pressing dimples right across it. Brush with the flour-and-water wash and scatter the seeds over.
- Bake on the hot tray for 8 to 12 minutes, until risen and freckled with gold. Somun is meant to stay pale rather than come out dark.
- Wrap them in a cloth as soon as they leave the oven and leave them five minutes. They are best eaten within the hour.
If you cannot find it
Substitutions that work outside Macedonia.
- Čurekot (nigella seeds)
- Sesame seeds, or half sesame and half black caraway.
- Brašno tip 500 (Macedonian bread flour)
- Strong white bread flour of about 12% protein.
- A bakery's stone hearth
- A heavy baking tray or pizza stone, heated in the oven for half an hour.
