Beer Event Rosemary Flatbread

by A.J. Coltrane

I thought it might be fun and good eating to bring rosemary flatbread to the last beer event we attended. It’s basically the Smitten Kitchen pizza recipe, with modifications:

I increased the salt, figuring we’d eat it with pretzels and use it to cut the beer. As it turned out there were a lot of stouts at the beer event, so the strong salt/rosemary combo worked out pretty well.

The dough was mixed, then got a four hour rise. At the end of four hours the dough was cut into six pieces.

The dough was then shaped into balls and allowed to rest for another hour. At this point the dough was very “pillowy”.

The dough was then rolled out, brushed liberally on both sides with extra virgin olive oil, and grilled. Olive oil was lightly applied after I took it off of the grill. Then it got a little sea salt.

Overall I think it came out pretty well — one thing I learned is that in the middle of winter, when the grill is cranky and damp, is that the grill needs to preheat for a while to heat up and to burn off whatever moisture is kicking around in there. I didn’t do that, and the bottoms came out with poor grill marks and darker than I would have liked. The light application of olive oil at the end is probably what salvaged it.

In any case, it didn’t last long around our table of seven people at the event — everyone was tearing off hunks of bread — it was a massacre!