River Cottage garlicky flatbreads

Bondi kids love making dough: bread, pizza and pasta regularly grace our table! And we also love, love, love garlicky anything! This dish is great for mopping up any dip, sauce or soup, but especially good for the broad bean puree…

Fresh from the garden: garlic
Recipe source: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Veg Every Day
Serves: 8 or 30 tastes

What to do:

For the magic dough:

• Put the two flours into the bowl of the stand mixer with the salt and yeast. Mix well using the dough hook. Add the oil and 325ml warm water and mix to a rough dough. Knead for 5–10 minutes, until smooth. This is quite a loose and sticky dough, which is just as it should be – you get better-textured bread this way – so try not to add too much flour if you can help it, it will become less sticky as you knead.
• Trickle a little oil into a clean bowl, add the kneaded dough and turn it in the oil so it is covered with a light film. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size – at least an hour, probably closer to two.
• When the dough is well risen and puffy, tip it out and ‘knock it back’ by poking it with your outstretched fingers until it collapses to its former size. It’s now ready to be shaped to your will.

For the garlic oil:

• Peel the garlic clove and very finely chop it. Combine the olive oil and garlic in a frying pan and place over a medium heat. You’re not going to fry it, just warm it through to take the edge off the garlic. So as soon as you see the first signs of a sizzle, pour the oil and garlic out of the pan into a small bowl to infuse. Wipe the frying pan clean.

For the flatbreads:

• After ‘knocking back’ the risen dough, take lemon-sized balls and roll them into 8 flat circles, 2mm thick. Leave to rest for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile heat a heavy-based, non-stick frying pan over high heat until smoking hot.
• Carefully lay one flatbread in the pan and cook for about 2 minutes, until bubbly on top and patched with brown spots on the base. Flip over and cook for 1-2 minutes more. Remove immediately to a plate and trickle with some of the garlicky oil. Scatter with a little flaked salt too. Repeat with all the dough. Cut the oiled flatbreads into wedges to serve.

Notes: Why do we leave the dough to rise? What is this process called?