This is the spring onion bread with cooked flour dough that I mentioned
last week. I'm sorry, but I've deleted the post which said who was looking
for it. I hope it find you anyway!
Xichuan Pepper Bread
from Flatbreads and Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
3 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 C boiling water
1/2 C plus 2 Tablespoons cold water
4 teaspoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon Xichuan (Szechuan) peppercorns, dry roasted and finely ground*
1 Cup finely chopped scallions or 1 Cup finely chopped garlic chives
They call for a food processor, but I know I have made this in a 5Q
Kitchenaid mixer without problems.
Stir or sift dry ingredients together, or pulse in the bowl of a food
processor.
Processor:
With processor motor running, pour boiling water in first, then the cold,
and process until mixture forms a ball. Process an additional minute, then
turn dough out, knead briefly, and let sit, covered, 15 minutes.
Mixer:
With dough hook and speed on medium, add first the boiling water then the
cold as above (use a splash guard and don't get scalded by the hot water!).
Knead until dough comes together, and the a little longer; the dough should
be very elastic and feel slick. Again, turn out, cover and rest 15 minutes.
Start to heat up one or two heavy skillets over medium heat. Brush lightly
with oil (using a paper towel or cloth carefully to avoid scorching yourself).
Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each into an 8-inch circle. Spread with
1/2 teaspoon peanut oil, sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon Xichuan pepper, and 2
tablespoons of the scallions or chives. Roll the bread up like a jelly
roll, keeping the roll as tight as you can as you go. Next, coil the roll
up into a tight flat spiral, pinching to seal the end to the rest of the
disk. (The trickiest part of that is to understand what it means to roll
the already rolled dough from a tube or cylinder into a disc. It does make
sense when you have the dough in front of you. Sorry, with the digest
format I can't include a picture.) Use a rolling pin to flatten the bread
to 1/4 inch thick and 6 inches diameter. Patch any small holes in the
dough if the filling threatens to leak through.
Lower the heat under the skillets to medium-low and add a bread to the pan.
Cook until the bottom is flecked with light brown spots, then flip and cook
on the other side until done. This takes 3-4 minutes per side. For me it
worked well to use both pans at once and it took about equally long to
flatten, fill, roll and coil each bread as to cook the previous one. Keep
covered and warm until read to serve.
By the way, this bread freezes well for later use, although the texture of
the scallions suffers a little.
*Xichuan or Szechuan pepper is the red hull of a tiny fruit (no relation to
black pepper or to american peppers), and you can buy it in a chinese
grocery. It loses its flavor quickly after grinding, so is only sold
whole, never powdered. In the highest-quality product, there will not be
much of the small shiny black seeds that you'll want to pick out before
using the spice. The cleaned pepper hulls can be lightly dry roasted in a
heavy skillet without oil until they begin to smell fragrant but not
scorched, then ground up in a pepper mill, coffee grinder, even a mortar
and pestle will do. I like to use a "Good Grips" brand peppermill for
grinding whole spices, because it's easy to fill with just a teaspoon to a
few tablespoons of a spice and works well. If you can't find it, a
sprinkle of black pepper to taste would probably also be fine.
Diane Brown
brown_d@kids.wustl.edu