Bread & Butter LV Recommends
Over Hot Coals Make flatbread, roasted veggies and yogurt labneh from the comfort of your campfire. BY BEN PARTRIDGE
O
ne of the more memorable diversions from last year was socially distanced outdoor gatherings with family members and “pod” friends, hanging around the most primitive of cooking stations: a fire pit. No need to clean the house or lay out a fancy spread—it’s the pandemic after all; we’re just trying to survive. My favorite things about cooking outdoors, whether camping or roasting something on a stick, is how everything feels more like a treat and accidents and mishaps are par for the course—marshmallows set ablaze, a sausage exploding from its casing or that thin spear of asparagus slips through the grate as a sacrifice to the grill gods. Even though most of us are vaccinated and venturing back out into the world, I’m not ready to give up that living-in-the-present, slowed-down mood I came to appreciate. Especially now that all that derecho firewood is properly cured. One fireside cooking method I’ve come to enjoy is experimenting with cooking vegetables and flatbreads directly in the ashes and hot coals. Not only is it a thrill watching dough bubble up or vegetable skins blacken in the embers, it’s also darn tasty. This spring at a backyard gathering with family I made naan-style bread slathered with homemade labneh. The refreshing tartness of the strained yogurt on slightly charred bread proved to be a lovely base for any number of fresh toppings. We decked ours out with ember-roasted peppers, grilled olives, radish, cucumbers and backyard herbs, drizzled with olive oil and big pinches of za’atar. Use what’s in season. Eat it like a pizza or fold it in half like a taco. Cooking on embers isn’t about achieving perfection, so try and let yourself relax and be entertained by the irregular wabi-sabi dough shapes, the bubbling bread, the burnt bits and the amusement of preparing food like a caveman.
What is za’atar?
Za’atar is generally a combination of dried oregano, thyme, marjoram, sumac, and toasted sesame seeds. You can find any number of recipes to make it online, or pick some up locally. I’ve seen cute boxes of it at Ten Thousand Villages.
How to build a coal bed
Like any fire, start with small stuff for the kindling and work your way up to bigger wood. To achieve a nice pile of cooking coals you’ll want
to transition your fire to hardwoods (like oak or maple) and make sure to maintain an open structure to the fire so air can move through. I’m a big fan of the log cabin-style structure or criss-cross build. Get it roaring and allow an hour or so for the wood to burn down into hot, ashy embers. Then arrange the coals so you have a relatively flat bed and push any still-burning wood to the side to create more coals should you need them.
Ben Partridge / Little Village
Ember-baking naan
I’ve experimented with a slew of flatbread recipes over hot coals and all of them have worked to a certain degree, but so far, this naan-style dough recipe has proved to be everyone’s favorite—light, chewy and crispy on the outside. You can cut this recipe in half if you’d like, but the ingredients are cheap and it’s nice to have 12 to play with, knowing you can burn half of them to a crisp if you get yourself totally lost, mesmerized by the bubbling dough.
NAAN Ingredients Makes 12 pieces
• • • • • • • •
1 packet of active dry yeast 1 cup of warm water 2 tbsp sugar ¼ cup milk 1 egg 1 tsp salt 3 ½ cup all-purpose flour 4 tbsp ghee (melted)
CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA / CZECH VILLAGE
68 July 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV296
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