Flatbread wraps

Devil had to chuckle when he read how much work Socialite went through to impress the others. (If you have followed it too, you know it wasn’t really such a big deal.)

When Devil has to bring a plate or when he wants a quick meal and there is no bread in the house, he throws together his thin pan-baked bread and wraps grated cheese and vegetables in it for a handy meal. All the little Devils love it too. But his signature dish is his devil chilly hot red beans wrapped in flatbread covered with a thick layer of cheese and baked in the oven. It is finger licking good and even the heartiest meat eaters don’t miss the meat. As everybody is so impressed by his skills, he has kept the recipe for his flatbread a secret until now, basically because it is really embarrassingly easy. Honestly, you couldn’t make a faster meal using shop-bought flatbread.

As everybody was queuing to upstage each other with the easiest recipe, he was adamant he will take the prize and handed Mouse a tattered old piece of paper on which he had copied the flatbread recipe from his Grandmother’s personal cookbook.

Mouse can gauge what the result will taste like by just looking at the recipe. “Do you realise this recipe is pretty much the same as Pirate’s crackers?” she asked.

“No way!” exclaimed Devil, “the bread tastes totally different. It’s soft and I make it in the pan”

“Yes,” said Mouse, “that is pretty much the only difference, and I see you are using milk instead of water.” Devil put the two recipes side by side and true enough, Mouse was right. “Actually,” Devil admitted “I have accidentally used water before and I couldn’t taste much difference. So when I don’t have milk in the fridge I don’t worry and just use water. Sometimes I use half and half.”

Mouse agreed that if you use the bread with a thick sauce and covered in cheese, no-one would taste much difference. However, if the bread becomes a wrap for finger food it will have a slighty more interesting texture when milk is used. But that is Mouse’s opinion. She is well aware that other Dedes have different tastes.

“So how many wraps will you get out of that recipe?” asked Mouse.

“That’s a rather silly question” replied Devil. “It depends on how big you make them, doesn’t it?”

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 50g cold butter, 175 ml milk (or water, or a mixture of both). Oil for the pan.

This measure will make around eight wraps.

Method

Put flour in a bowl, cut butter into small pieces and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it is well distributed. Add liquid and knead to a very elastic non-sticky dough for about five minutes. Place the dough in a bowl and let it rest in the fridge for at least 5 minutes. In the meantime you can chop the vegetables and grate the cheese for the filling. If you eat meat, you can of course also use diced left-overs or fry up a few cubes of meat, or use some cold ham. There is no limit to the fillings. Just chop it up small.

Divide the dough into small balls, sprinkle flour on the working surface and roll out the balls as thin as possible. It is easiest when you always roll from the middle to the rim, rather than going forwards and backwards with the rolling pin.

Heat up a little oil in a skillet. Place one piece in it. The bread starts blistering almost instantly. After a minute or two flip over and do the other side for the same amount of time.

Put on a plate and cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm while you work through the dough one by one. Don’t add more oil to the skillet. The oil you put in at the beginning should last till the end. You will find that the first bread will be a tad more brittle than the others as it soaked up most of the oil. In our house the first one out of the pan is used to feed the lions (ie all the hungry ones that can’t wait any longer).

Note: You can re-heat left-over wraps in the microwave.