Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Cheater's Lavash Crackers



This is the Bernie Madoff of crackers.
Why bother with yeast when you can pilfer someone else's dough? With store-bought lavash bread, you'll have "homemade" crackers before you can say, "I am a culinary criminal mastermind." Just go to the grocer's lavash vault and open sesame.

Middle Eastern lavash bread is inexpensive, comes in packages of six large rectangles, and has just four simple ingredients: wheat, water, yeast and salt. It also freezes well for crackers, so you can keep the bread around for whenever the mood strikes. To make them, I take a sheet of the bread and brush it with olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder and sesame seeds. I’ve been greedy and seedy before by using sesame, poppy, fennel, caraway and cumin seeds all together. I may have broken the bank with that combo, so you’ll have to experiment and see what works for you. No matter what seed and spice combination you use, I guarantee you’ll strike it rich.

Simply bake this bad boy for a few minutes until he's light brown and crisp. Then let him cool, and with hygienically pious hands, break him into rustic crackers. Bernie's a real crowd-pleaser served alongside hummus, baba ganoush, or tapenade, plus he’s much cheaper than buying those fancy packaged lavash crackers. Just don’t drop the soap when you’re cleaning up. He's still an inmate, you know.

Recipe

1 sheet of lavash bread

About 1 tsp olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

A handful of sesame seeds

Pre-heat the oven to 375ยบ. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet until they’re light brown. Brush the lavash bread with olive oil, add spices and seeds. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet for 5 to 10 minutes. Let cool, then break into pieces.

3 comments:

  1. Very clever. The hunt is on for lavash bread. If you want them to look like the fancy crackers, have you ever cut the dough before baking? Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Great idea!

    @ Andrea-I'm sure cutting the bread would work well, too.

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