Malawah flat bread

Malawah Yemeni flat bread made with the addition of butter in the dough and brushing the pastry with extra butter and working it in.

Result is flaky and buttery delicious flat breads which I used as a base for our pulled chicken, “Musakhan” recipe from Milk street: Tuesday nights by Christopher Kimball.

It’s a Palestinian dish where chicken is cooked with onions, pine nuts and sumac and it is great as a topping drizzled with tahini.

This is a new flat bread recipe I tried after tasting it at Rovi last week. To be honest my version looks a lot different from the one we had there but we still loved it.

This is a good one if you are lazing around at home and have time to pop in the kitchen and brush & roll the dough every 20 minutes.

Dough keeps well for 2 days in the fridge and can be made in advance.

Makes 4 flat breads

Dough ready in 1 hour 30 minutes

Cooking 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 cups plain flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon butter melted for the dough

1 cup water

2 tablespoon butter melted for brushing

Method

1. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the salt, sugar, red wine vinegar, melted butter and water.

2. Knead to 5 minutes or until you have a smooth dough.

3. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, shape into balls, cover and rest 20 minutes.

4. One at a time, and using flour to stop it sticking, roll each piece into a 15 cm round brush with melted butter then roll into a tight sausage shape. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.

5. One at a time keep the sausage shaped dough upright and flatten by pressing at the top. Then roll each piece into a 15 cm round brush with melted butter then roll into a tight sausage shape. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.

6. Repeat the flattening, rolling, brushing and resting twice more.

7. Press the sausage shaped dough, at this stage you can keep them in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Place in a lightly oiled, large mixing bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

8. Heat a non stick pan over medium heat, place one flat bread in the pan and cooked for 2 minutes on each side. It is likely to bubble up, press down if it puffs up. There will be small golden brown spots on both sides.

9. Stack the cooked bread and keep warm covered with a tea towel, the steam from the flat breads will help to soften the flat breads.