| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 11/27/2007 7:41:11 PM | Recipes can be so much more than a jumble of ingredients measured, mixed, stirred, and heated. They can carry within them the wisdom of surviving generation after generation, the nuances of the particular local culture, the love and nourishment for our bodies that we share with family and others. So I offer this recipe with consideration of those things and a story of a childhood memory I relived over and over again.
Easter Story
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I don't claim to know why we did it but every Easter dad rounded us all up in the car and mother packed our easter outfits with us and we travelled across state lines to my great Aunt's house. It was an old house, almost a country house except that it was in a small Wisconsin town. I loved when the morning sunlight shot through the windows and illuminated the staircase leading up to our guest rooms. The hoya plant climbed up that stairs and just below it was an antique piano that we were discouraged from playing.
But when we arrived she would open in the back of the kitchen the pocketdoor pantry to reveal a crockpot full of whatever delicious soul-warming soup she had decided to make. The soup was a welcomed comfort food after a long roadtrip but even better it was always served with the most simple yet fulfilling food -- flatbread. Even with her arthritically crippled hands she loved flatbread enough to bother to make it long after it was easy and conveinent for her to do so. So I imagine it had a fond memory locked away up there in her curly white hair. I wish know I had thought to ask her about it. This white haired old lady, very spirited and loving, but old fashioned and a strict way to be proper. She was from the old old old school. I hope you appreciate this recipe as much as I do.
So for many years this was not in my life. Oh there was the commerical ones like Rykrisp which is good in its own right but nothing like her flatbread. In recent years I have found this a wonderful comfort food again, but in a new light. I try to keep a baggie of it in my coat, my backpack, and especially in my bike pack. It will easily keep a month and in a long line on a wait or in the middle of some forestry trail along the river when hunger strikes this flatbread is a fantastically conveinent food. I feel so nurtured by it.
While it might only seem like an old fashioned cracker I find that it really sticks to my ribs. It's easily a light meal by itself but ideally this goes great with a light smear of butter next to a hot bowl of soup, hearty stew, or even chili. I believe it is a scandanavian classic that has been passed down. Best as I know this recipe is 200+ years old. I hope you try it and appreciate its rustic old world charm.
3 C Flour
2 C Oatmeal
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 t Baking Soda in 1 1/2 C Buttermilk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 t salt
Melt butter and add melted butter to oatmeal. Mix in sugar, flour, and salt. Add buttermilk with its mixed in soda.
Flour a board and roll it as thin and evenly as possible. Usually this is dried and baked in a 250-300 F oven on sheet pans til lightly golden brown. (20-30 minutes, usually) It must be dried through and crispy. It develops a slightly nutty toasted taste and is not as internally fluffy as most crackers are but it is very crisp -- like a scandanavian tortilla chip, I suppose.
Lightly butter and serve with soup or snack on them plain. They keep well in those big old round cookie tins. Great to nibble on before a meal or while cooking.
I've substituted oat bran and 7 grain cereal. I think sunflower seeds would work well, too.
Hope you all enjoy it as much as I have.
PS -- I put this in the bread catagory since it has grains in it and also to encourage people looking for a slightly offbeat recipe choice. But it can be a snack. Sometimes she even put jam on it. But I find it so satisfying just plain. I offer it in memory of my great aunt and those Easter Memories. | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/9/2007 7:13:23 PM | I haven't specifically with that recipe but I do with pancake recipes. I just use less milk because buttermilk is much thicker. I've done the opposite with popovers, gone from milk recipes to using buttermilk. So I just shoot for the same stiffness/thickness/texture in the dough. I'd start with 1 cup of regular milk and "sneak up on it" in one T increments and it should work. It would help if you've made the recipe the recipe before so you know what the dough feels like.
But why not just wait and get the right ingredient next time you get to the store? You will quickly become a believer when you taste the increased tenderness in baked goods or have your first real homemade buttermilk pancakes! Plus buttermilk stays good way way beyond normal milk. With this recipe I have never deveated from it with the liquids portion. Sorry. | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/9/2007 7:43:57 PM | If you don't use a lot of buttermilk, you can buy powdered buttermilk in most grocery stores and mix it when you need it.
Substitutes for buttermilk:
1) Combine one cup of milk (or soymilk) plus one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, and allow to stand for ten minutes.
2) Combine one cup of milk plus two teaspoons cream of tartar, and allow to stand for ten minutes .
3) Combine two parts plain yogurt plus one part milk OR plain, low-fat yogurt OR sour cream OR molasses (in batters that also call for baking soda) | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/17/2007 8:18:51 PM | I made this recipe this past weekend. Great recipe! I am going to include it when I make up food baskets next year.
Could wheat berries be substituted for the oatmeal? | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/24/2007 5:30:47 AM | I never buy buttermilk unless I have big plans for it. I just make mine with regular milk and lemon juice or vinegar. Buttermilk is great for dipping chicken before flouring it to fry.
Thanks for sharing the recipe and the memory. | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/26/2007 8:48:41 PM | The thing about buttermilk is that the quality is the same you bought it two months later as the day you bought it. And your substitution will work for most things but its bound to be thinner than the thicker texture that buttermilk gives.
Could wheat berries be substituted for the oatmeal?
I dunno. Never tried. And are wheatberries the same thing as what I'd get from the farmer after the wheat has been dechaffed? (whole hard kernels of wheat) Maybe 2 T - 1/4 cup but beyond that I think it'd potentially mess with the texture too much. Probably work better if you pulsed them in the food processor for a few seconds. A prolonged soaking in the buttermilk might help.
I like their nuttiness and crunch. When I was a kid we used to rub the wheat heads between our hands to dechaf them and eat them right from the edge of the farmer's fields. Doesn't get any fresher or better than that!
Maybe make the dough as usual, then roll it out, and sprinkle the wheat atop that then roll them in with a pass of the rolling pin again and bake. Usually I just use "wheat germ" if I want to add more vit E. | |
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| My great great grandma's flatbread recipe
Posted: 12/27/2007 4:35:09 PM | If you don't have buttermilk, you can make this substitute
Homemade Buttermilk Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
***ONE of the following***
1 3/4 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Directions:
Add acidic ingredient (tartar, vinegar or lemon juice) to the milk and stir.
Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. The milk should start to curdle.
Stir well before using.
A combination of plain yogurt (3/4 cup) and whole milk (1/4) cup can also be
used to replace a cup of buttermilk in most recipes. | |
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