A note before beginning: the recipes in Part Four are written for the Level 3 kitchen, the most austere standard of unleavened observance, in which no biological leavening, no chemical leavening, and no deliberate mechanical incorporation of air for the purpose of lift is used. Every preparation in this part contains only ingredients that contribute to flavor, structure, fat content, hydration, and surface character — nothing whose purpose is to make the product rise. The techniques employed are those available to every baker across every level: rubbing fat into flour, mixing dough with hot liquid, resting, rolling, and baking at appropriate heat. None of them constitutes mechanical leavening in any theologically meaningful sense, and all of them are consistent with the strictest standard of Level 3 observance as it is understood in the most conservative communities of Bravia, including those communities whose interpretation of the standard I consulted before finalizing these recipes.
Each recipe in this part is labeled Level 3. Where a preparation is appropriate at Level 1 and Level 2 as well — as most of the preparations in this part are, since removing leavening is an additive constraint and a Level 3 preparation satisfies Level 1 and Level 2 requirements automatically — this is noted at the head of the recipe. Adaptations for the specific qualities that Level 1 and Level 2 bakers might wish to emphasize differently are noted at the close of each recipe where relevant.
These are not simplified recipes. They are the most demanding recipes in this book, because they depend entirely on the baker’s understanding of flour, fat, heat, and time, with nothing else to carry them. They reward practice and punish inattention. They are also, when made well, among the most satisfying preparations I know.
My mother made her festival flatbread on the morning of the first day of the feast, before anything else. Before the table was set, before the bitter herbs were prepared, before the lamb was brought out of the cold room: the flatbread came first, because in her kitchen the bread was not an accompaniment to the feast but its foundation, and everything else was arranged around it. She would be at the bench by the time the first light came through the kitchen window, her flour already measured and waiting in the bowl she used for nothing else, her griddle already on the fire beginning its long slow climb to the temperature she wanted. She did not speak much on those mornings. She worked.
I watched her for years before I understood what I was watching, and then I watched for years more before I could do it myself with anything approaching her consistency. The ancient Bravian matzah — which is what Level 3 flatbread is, in the most precise and direct sense, whatever name any given household gives it — is technically the simplest preparation in this book: flour, water, fat if you use it at all, salt if your tradition includes it, heat. Five ingredients at most, often fewer. The technique is minimal by design. And yet it is the preparation that exposes every weakness in the baker’s understanding most completely, because there is nothing in it that hides anything.
If your flour is poor, the bread will taste of poor flour. If your water is wrong in proportion, the dough will fight you. If your heat is insufficient or inconsistent, the bread will be pale and gummy or charred and brittle. If your rolling is uneven, the bread will cook at different rates in different places and you will have some patches that are done and some that are not, and there is no correcting this once the dough is on the griddle. The ancient matzah is honest in the way that a mirror is honest: it shows you exactly what you brought to it, no more and no less.
This chapter covers the classic preparations: the plain wheat matzah in its salted and unsalted forms, the regional grain variations that reflect the agricultural diversity of Bravia’s provinces, and the technique principles that govern all of them. Chapter 12 covers the enriched Level 3 preparations — the oil-laden and fat-enriched rounds that represent a somewhat more forgiving but equally ancient tradition — and Chapters 13 and 14 cover the communal and grain-free preparations respectively. But everything in those chapters rests on the foundation of what is in this one, and the baker who has not mastered the classic Level 3 flatbread before attempting the enriched preparations or the communal-scale production of Chapter 13 will find those chapters more difficult than they should be. Begin here. Return here. The classic preparation is the curriculum.
On the Question of Oil in the Classic Matzah
Before we encounter the recipes themselves, I want to address a question that students ask with some regularity and that deserves a direct answer: does the classic Level 3 flatbread include fat or not?
The answer, historically and practically, is: it depends on the tradition of the household.
The most austere version of the Level 3 flatbread contains nothing but flour and water and, where tradition includes it, salt. This is the preparation that most directly echoes the literal description of the bread our fathers made in haste: unleavened cakes, produced from whatever dough they carried with them, with no addition beyond the grain itself and the water to combine it. Some of the most strictly observant Bravian households, particularly among certain of the older hill country communities, maintain this absolute minimalism for the flatbreads served at the Passover table itself on the evening that begins the feast, reserving the oil-enriched preparations for the subsequent days.
A second tradition, equally ancient and equally well-documented in the Bravian record, includes a small quantity of oil or rendered fat in the classic flatbread dough. This tradition rests on the observation that the commanded unleavened preparations described in the Levitical law — the minchah offerings, the breads of the priestly calendar — frequently include oil as a component, and that the presence of fat in an unleavened bread therefore has explicit scriptural precedent in the context of commanded preparation. The oil-inclusive tradition produces a somewhat more pliable and tender flatbread with a more complex flavor than the water-only version, and it is the tradition followed by the majority of Bravian households, including my own.
Both traditions are represented in this chapter. Recipe 15 is the water-only preparation in its pure form. Recipe 16 incorporates a small quantity of oil. Both are correct Level 3 preparations. The reader should follow the tradition of her household and her community, and if she has no established tradition to follow because she is observing the feast at Level 3 for the first time, I recommend beginning with Recipe 16 because it is marginally more forgiving on the bench and will allow her to develop the rolling and heat management skills that both preparations require before she encounters the additional challenges of the water-only dough.
On Timing and the Eighteen-Minute Question
The observant reader who is familiar with the strictest traditions of unleavened bread preparation will have encountered the eighteen-minute rule: the principle, held in some Bravian communities and in certain traditions outside Bravia, that matzah must be mixed, rolled, and baked within eighteen minutes of the water contacting the flour, because after eighteen minutes a fermentation process may have begun that would render the bread leavened. I want to address this directly because it affects the practical management of the Level 3 baking session in those households where it is observed.
The eighteen-minute tradition has a long history and I respect it, and I note that the water-only preparation in Recipe 15 can be made well within this constraint by an experienced baker working with a properly preheated griddle. The oil-enriched preparation in Recipe 16 also falls within the constraint in its basic form, though the baker should be aware that the addition of fat slows the development of any fermentation, which is itself an argument — held by some scholars — that the time constraint is less pressing for oil-enriched preparations than for water-only ones.
For the practical management of a Level 3 baking session within the eighteen-minute constraint: work in small batches. Mix dough for two or three flatbreads at a time, roll and bake them entirely, then mix the next batch. Do not mix a large quantity of dough at once and then roll it all before baking. The griddle should be preheated and ready before the first batch of dough is mixed, and the rolling should proceed directly to the griddle without any intervening rest period. This is genuinely possible with practice, and the Level 3 baker who works in this sequential manner — mix, roll immediately, bake, repeat — will find that the discipline of the time constraint produces a very consistent product, because each batch receives the same treatment and the same heat.
For the households that do not observe the eighteen-minute constraint, the recipes below include a brief rest period that improves the extensibility of the dough and produces a slightly better result. Both approaches produce good bread. Choose according to your household’s tradition.
Recipe 15 — The Passover Table Matzah: Plain Water and Flour
Level: 1, 2, and 3
A note on this recipe: this is the most ancient and most minimal of the preparations in this book. It is two ingredients — three if you include salt, which I do and will discuss below — and one technique. There is nothing to hide behind and nothing to adjust if the result is not right. What is right is learned through repetition rather than through explanation, and no amount of reading this recipe will substitute for making it six or eight times before the feast season arrives. I have been making this preparation for most of my adult life and I still consider each batch of the feast-season to be a learning experience. This is not false modesty. It is the nature of a preparation that has no margin.
Makes 6 to 8 flatbreads, depending on the size and thinness achieved
Ingredients:
- 2 cups hard wheat flour — hard wheat rather than soft is essential in this water-only preparation, because without fat to tenderize the crumb, the gluten structure of hard wheat is what holds the flatbread together during the vigorous rolling that this preparation requires and during the rapid, intense baking that gives it its character. Soft wheat flour in a water-only matzah produces a dough that is difficult to roll thin without tearing and a finished product that is less structurally coherent than the baker wants.
- ½ teaspoon fine salt — the question of salt in the classic matzah is one on which Bravian household traditions differ considerably. The water-only matzah as I make it and as my mother made it includes salt, on the practical grounds that an unsalted flatbread of such simplicity has almost no flavor beyond the wheat itself, and that salt does not constitute leaven in any sense of the word. The unsalted tradition exists and is observed in some communities as a form of additional austerity; I note it and do not dispute it, but I salt mine. The unsalted variation is noted at the end of this recipe for those who observe it.
- ⅔ cup cold water — begin with slightly less than this and add more carefully, because the correct hydration for this dough is on the dry side and the difference between manageable and unworkably sticky is a small quantity of water
Method:
Measure the flour and salt into a clean bowl. Stir once to distribute the salt. Add slightly more than half the water and begin working the mixture together with your hands. Add additional water a tablespoon at a time, working after each addition, until the dough barely coheres. This dough should feel considerably drier than any other dough in this book: it should be rough and somewhat crumbly when first brought together, smoothing and becoming more coherent under sustained pressure from your hands but never feeling soft or slack. If it feels soft, you have added too much water, and the remedy is difficult — a small additional quantity of flour can be worked in, but the distribution of that flour will be uneven and the dough will be stronger in some places than others as a result. It is far better to add the water cautiously from the beginning than to correct an over-hydrated water-only matzah dough after the fact.
Once the dough coheres, knead it firmly for three minutes on an unfloured bench. The absence of flour on the bench surface is deliberate: the dry, stiff dough benefits from the friction of direct contact with the bench surface, which helps to develop the gluten network more efficiently than a floured surface would. The dough will feel tight and demanding under your hands throughout this kneading, which is as it should be.
If you are not observing the eighteen-minute constraint, cover the dough and rest for fifteen minutes. If you are observing the constraint, proceed immediately to rolling.
Preheat the griddle over high heat until a pinch of flour scattered on the surface browns in six to eight seconds — hotter than the griddle temperature for the Level 1 flatbreads, because the water-only matzah requires more aggressive initial heat to produce the rapid surface setting and steam lift that give it its correct texture and character.
Divide the dough into six to eight pieces, depending on the size you intend. Work with one piece at a time, keeping the remainder covered. On a very lightly floured bench, roll each piece with a firm rolling pin, pressing decisively rather than tentatively: this dough does not respond well to hesitant rolling. Work from the center outward and rotate the piece a quarter turn frequently. The dough will resist rolling at first and then, as the gluten relaxes slightly under the pressure, become more cooperative. Roll until the piece is approximately seven to eight inches across and at a thinness that approaches translucency — thinner than you think is correct, because this dough puffs slightly in the oven and a thick piece will be doughy at the center regardless of how hot the griddle is.
Dock the rolled piece thoroughly with a fork or a docking tool: rows of perforations approximately three-quarters of an inch apart across the entire surface, including the edges. The docking controls the way in which steam escapes from the dough during baking, directing it upward through the perforations rather than forcing it to accumulate and create uncontrolled blistering. A matzah that has been adequately docked will be relatively flat with small, uniform surface irregularities; one that has been inadequately docked will balloon unevenly and develop large hollow blisters that collapse on cooling to produce a fragile, uneven product.
Transfer the docked round directly to the hot griddle. Bake for sixty to ninety seconds on the first side, until the surface shows the characteristic spotty browning of a properly baked Level 3 flatbread: uneven areas of golden brown and deeper brown against pale stretches, with small dark spots at the thinnest points. The dough will have stiffened and become rigid to the touch at the edges. Flip decisively using a broad flat spatula and bake the second side for forty-five to sixty seconds, until it is similarly spotted and the flatbread feels completely rigid when lifted from the griddle. There should be no flex in a properly baked water-only matzah.
Transfer to a clean cloth. Do not stack the matzahs on top of each other while they are still hot, because the trapped steam will soften them. Lay them side by side on the cloth, or prop them at a slight angle against each other as many hill country bakers do, to allow air to circulate around them as they cool.
A properly made water-only matzah will be rigid and completely dry within five minutes of coming off the griddle. It will have a clean snap when broken and a flavor of toasted grain that is direct and unembellished. It is not a complex flavor, but it is a genuine one, and it is the flavor that has been at the center of the Bravian Passover table since before any of us were born.
The unsalted variation: Omit the salt entirely. The dough will be fractionally more extensible without the tightening effect of salt on the gluten network, which is a minor practical advantage that does not offset the loss of flavor. I record this variation in full conscience but do not recommend it on culinary grounds. Those who observe it do so on theological grounds that are theirs to hold.
On oven baking versus griddle baking: While the griddle is the traditional tool for Level 3 matzah in most Bravian regional traditions, oven baking on a preheated stone produces an equally good result with some practical differences. The oven stone distributes heat more evenly across the entire surface of the flatbread simultaneously, which produces more uniform browning and slightly more consistent results across a batch than the griddle, where the baker must monitor each piece continuously and manage the heat of the griddle between batches. The oven method is somewhat better suited to the baker working alone who is producing large quantities, because multiple flatbreads can be baked on the stone simultaneously. The griddle method is better suited to the small household production of the classic Passover table matzah, where immediate attention to each piece and the smell of bread baking directly over fire are part of the experience as much as the product itself.
For oven baking, preheat the oven to its highest possible temperature with the baking stone inside for at least forty-five minutes before the first piece goes in. Place the rolled and docked flatbreads on the stone and bake for four to five minutes total, watching from the three-minute mark, until the surface shows thorough spotty browning. The shorter baking time achievable on a griddle is not available in the oven, but the result is equally good in character if slightly different in appearance.
Recipe 16 — The Daily Festival Matzah: Oil and Flour
Level: 1, 2, and 3
A note on this recipe: this is the preparation I make most frequently during the feast season, and the preparation that the Stone Hearth Bakery produces in the largest quantities during the seven days of the feast. It is, in my judgment, the most practically useful Level 3 preparation in this chapter: it is more forgiving on the bench than the water-only matzah, more complex in flavor, and more versatile as an accompaniment to the range of savory and sweet preparations that appear on the festival table across seven days. It is also the preparation I would give to a baker who has never attempted Level 3 work before and who wants a preparation that will teach her the essential skills of this level of baking without setting her up for the particular frustrations of the water-only dough on her first attempt.
This is the bread I believe my grandmother’s grandmother brought with her on the ships, though whether it was made with olive oil or with rendered animal fat I cannot say with certainty. Both traditions exist in the Western Reaches communities, and both produce excellent bread.
Makes 8 flatbreads
Ingredients:
- 2 cups hard wheat flour — hard wheat remains essential here as in Recipe 15, though the presence of oil will provide enough tenderness that the slightly lower structural demands of the soft wheat are not needed
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, or melted rendered lamb fat for the hill country version — the quantity is deliberately modest; this is not an oil-enriched flatbread in the sense of the preparations in Chapter 12, which carry a much higher fat content, but a classically lean preparation in which the oil is present as a modest modifier of texture and flavor rather than as a dominant ingredient
- ½ cup water, heated until steaming — unlike the cold water of the water-only matzah, the hot water of this preparation works with the oil to gelatinize the starches and produce a more extensible dough, and this is the technical reason why this preparation is more forgiving on the bench than Recipe 15
Method:
Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl and stir to distribute. Add the olive oil or melted fat and work it briefly into the flour with your fingertips — twenty to thirty seconds of rubbing, not the sustained rubbing of the pastry fat-incorporation technique but a light initial distribution to coat some of the flour particles with fat before the water is added. This brief rubbing is what distinguishes this preparation from simply adding oil and water together to flour and produces a somewhat more even fat distribution in the finished dough.
Add the hot water in a thin stream, stirring as you pour, until the dough comes together. Turn onto a lightly floured bench and knead for two to three minutes. The dough will be noticeably softer and more pliable than the water-only matzah dough, and it will come together more cleanly and become smooth more quickly under kneading. This is the oil’s contribution, and it is a real one.
If not observing the eighteen-minute constraint, cover and rest for fifteen to twenty minutes. If observing the constraint, proceed immediately to rolling on a preheated griddle.
Divide into eight equal pieces. Roll each piece on a lightly floured bench to a round of approximately eight to nine inches, using the same decisive, rotation-based rolling method described in Recipe 15 but with notably less resistance from the dough. The oil-enriched matzah dough will extend more readily and more evenly than the water-only dough, and the baker who has practiced Recipe 15 will find Recipe 16 rolls considerably more cooperatively.
Roll to the same degree of thinness: approaching translucency, thinner than instinct suggests is necessary. Dock thoroughly with the same spacing described in Recipe 15. The docking is equally important in this preparation, because the oil contributes enough moisture to produce more vigorous steam during baking than the water-only dough generates, and undocked oil-enriched matzah will blister more aggressively and more unevenly than the water-only preparation.
Bake on a hot griddle for the same timing as Recipe 15 — sixty to ninety seconds per side — or on a preheated oven stone for four to five minutes. The oil-enriched matzah will brown somewhat faster than the water-only version because the fat promotes surface browning, and the baker should be slightly more attentive to color during the baking of Recipe 16 than of Recipe 15. The correct final color is the same: deep, uneven golden brown with darker spotting at the thinnest points.
The finished oil-enriched matzah will be completely rigid but marginally less brittle than the water-only version, with a slightly richer flavor in which the grain character is still primary but the oil provides a background note of richness that makes the bread more immediately appealing as a standalone preparation and more versatile as an accompaniment. It keeps slightly better than the water-only matzah as well, because the oil slows the staling process that makes a thoroughly dried flatbread gradually less pleasant to eat over the course of several days.
On the choice between olive oil and rendered fat: I have made this preparation with both and have specific recommendations for specific contexts. For the Passover table, served alongside the lamb and the bitter herbs, rendered lamb fat produces a preparation of greater coherence with the other elements of the table: the fat character of the bread and the fat character of the meat complement rather than contrast. For the subsequent days of the feast, when the preparation will accompany a wider range of savory and sweet preparations, olive oil’s more neutral and versatile character is the better choice. For the festival table of a household in the interior Amphoe communities where lamb is the dominant fat and olive oil is an imported luxury, rendered lamb fat throughout is entirely traditional and produces an excellent result. Choose according to your tradition, your occasion, and your pantry.
Recipe 17 — Barley Matzah of the Hill Country
Level: 1, 2, and 3
A note on this recipe: barley matzah has a longer documented history in the Bravian tradition than wheat matzah, because barley is the earlier grain of the year — it is harvested first, its sheaf is the omer offering that begins the count to Pentecost, and it was almost certainly the grain of the earliest Bravian settlers in those first difficult years before the wheat cultivation was fully established in the new land. In the hill country communities of the Western Reaches, barley matzah has never been displaced by wheat, and some of the oldest families in those communities make their Passover table matzah from barley in preference to wheat as a deliberate connection to the most ancient layer of their tradition. I have enormous respect for this practice, and the recipe below is as close as I can come to the preparation I have watched made in hill country kitchens over the years, adapted slightly for the home baker who may be encountering barley matzah for the first time.
Barley matzah is a demanding preparation. It requires more patience than wheat matzah, more attention to hydration, and a more experienced eye for the correct degree of thinness, because barley’s gluten is weaker and more fragile than wheat’s and the dough will tear more readily during rolling if it is not handled with appropriate care. The result, when the preparation succeeds, has a flavor that I find genuinely unlike anything else in the unleavened repertoire: nutty, slightly earthy, with a pleasant bitterness in the toasted surface that makes it a particularly apt bread for the Passover table, where the bitter herbs are also present and where the overall flavor profile of the meal leans toward the complex and the slightly austere.
Makes 6 flatbreads
Ingredients:
- 1¼ cups barley flour — stone-ground if possible, because the coarser particle distribution of stone-ground barley flour produces a more textured and more characterful bread than the finely milled commercial barley flour that is beginning to appear in some of the port-town markets
- ¾ cup hard wheat flour — this addition of wheat flour is the adaptation I referred to above; pure barley matzah, which does exist in some of the most traditional hill country kitchens, requires considerable skill to produce successfully, and the addition of wheat flour provides enough gluten strength to make the dough manageable for the baker who is not working with barley regularly. Those who wish to attempt pure barley matzah will find guidance in the variation note below.
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 2 tablespoons rendered lamb fat, melted — olive oil can be substituted but the hill country tradition is emphatically lamb fat for this preparation, and the lamb fat and barley combination has a flavor coherence that olive oil and barley does not quite match
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons water, heated until steaming — barley flour absorbs water differently from wheat flour and generally requires more liquid per unit of flour to achieve a workable dough; begin with half a cup and add more carefully
Method:
Combine the barley flour, hard wheat flour, and salt in a mixing bowl and stir to distribute. Work in the melted lamb fat briefly with your fingertips as in Recipe 16. Add the hot water in a thin stream, stirring, until the dough comes together. The dough will feel different from the wheat matzah doughs immediately: it will be somewhat grainier in texture and will not develop the same smooth, elastic surface that wheat dough achieves under kneading. This is normal and correct. Knead gently for two to three minutes — more firmly than feels comfortable will risk overworking the weak barley gluten and producing a dough that falls apart during rolling.
Cover and rest for twenty minutes regardless of the eighteen-minute consideration, because barley dough requires this full rest to become workable; the gluten development that wheat achieves quickly under kneading takes longer and requires rest rather than additional kneading in a barley-dominant dough.
Divide into six pieces. Roll each piece on a well-floured bench — more flour on the bench than for wheat matzah, because the weaker gluten of the barley dough tears more easily when it sticks to the surface during rolling. Work gently and with smaller movements of the rolling pin than the decisive pressing used for wheat matzah. Rotate frequently. If the dough tears, press it back together immediately with gentle pressure from your fingers and allow it to rest for two minutes before continuing.
The correct thinness for barley matzah is slightly greater than for wheat matzah: somewhat less thin, because the weaker structure of the barley dough cannot support rolling to near-translucency without tearing. The dough should be thin enough to see the shadow of your hand through it when held up to the light, but not thin enough to see the shape of your fingers clearly.
Dock thoroughly. Bake on a preheated griddle or stone at the same high heat called for in Recipes 15 and 16, for the same approximate timing — perhaps ten seconds less on the second side, because barley flatbread at the slightly greater thickness specified sets slightly faster than wheat flatbread at the same heat.
The finished barley matzah will be darker than the wheat preparations — a deep golden brown with pronounced dark spotting — and will have a more pronounced and complex surface aroma, because the oils and starches of barley caramelize and develop flavor at slightly different rates from wheat. It will also be slightly more fragile than wheat matzah when cooled, because the barley gluten network is less structurally robust. Handle the finished flatbreads gently and do not stack them until they are fully cooled.
Pure barley matzah variation: For the household with a strong hill country tradition that prefers to make the Passover table matzah from pure barley without the wheat addition: use two cups of barley flour, increase the water by two additional tablespoons, and handle the dough with extreme gentleness throughout rolling and transfer. Do not attempt to roll it as thin as the wheat-barley blend. Thickness of approximately three millimeters — a modest thinness rather than an extreme one — is the correct target for pure barley matzah, because the dough will tear before it reaches the translucency achievable with wheat. The result will be denser than the blended version and more demanding to eat, in the sense that it is more substantial against the tooth. It is very much its own preparation and should be approached as such rather than as an inferior version of the blended recipe. Several Bravian bakers I admire greatly make nothing else for the Passover table.
Recipe 18 — Spelt Matzah of the Eastern Settlements
Level: 1, 2, and 3
A note on this recipe: spelt matzah is the newest of the classic Level 3 preparations in the Bravian tradition, having developed primarily in the Delta settlements and the eastern colonies where spelt has been planted in the river-enriched soil with considerable success over the past generation. I hesitated to include it in this chapter alongside the more ancient preparations because it does not yet have the depth of tradition behind it that the wheat and barley preparations carry. I decided to include it because I have been to the Delta settlements and eaten the spelt matzah being made there, and it is genuinely excellent — not simply a variation on wheat matzah but a preparation with its own distinct character that I believe will eventually find its place in the wider Bravian tradition as the eastern communities mature and their culinary identity develops. I include it here as a document of that developing tradition as much as a recipe.
Spelt matzah is, of the three classic preparations in this chapter, the most immediately appealing to the baker who is new to Level 3 work. Spelt’s extensible, forgiving gluten produces a dough that is easier to roll thin than either the wheat-only or the barley-dominant preparations, and its natural sweetness and nutty character produce a finished flatbread of very pleasant flavor without any of the earthy austerity of the barley preparation. It is gentle bread, and it is good bread, and the eastern settlements that are developing it as a tradition are doing good work.
Makes 8 flatbreads
Ingredients:
- 1½ cups spelt flour — whole spelt flour if it is available, because the bran in whole spelt contributes a pleasant nuttiness and a slightly more complex surface flavor when the bread toasts against the griddle; white spelt flour if whole is not available, which will produce a slightly more delicate bread with a milder flavor
- ½ cup hard wheat flour — included to provide structural reinforcement for the spelt, which, as noted in Chapter 2, has an extensible but somewhat fragile gluten that benefits from the additional network strength of hard wheat, particularly when the dough must be rolled very thin
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil — olive oil rather than rendered fat is the tradition of the Delta settlements and the eastern colonies, reflecting both the availability of olive cultivation in the southern portions of the Delta region and the influence of the port-town culinary tradition on the communities that settled the area from coastal regions of Bravia
- ½ cup water, heated until steaming
Method:
Combine the spelt flour, hard wheat flour, and salt and stir. Work in the olive oil briefly. Add the hot water and bring together into a dough. Knead for two to three minutes — the spelt gluten will develop quickly under kneading and the dough will become smooth and pliable with relatively little effort compared to the wheat-only preparations. This apparent ease is, as I noted in Chapter 2, slightly deceptive: the spelt gluten develops quickly but also breaks down quickly under sustained working, and the baker should stop kneading at the point of smoothness rather than continuing past it in search of greater development.
Cover and rest for twenty minutes. The rest period is particularly beneficial with spelt dough, which relaxes significantly during resting and becomes noticeably more extensible as a result.
Divide into eight pieces and roll each on a lightly floured bench to a round of approximately eight to nine inches. Spelt dough will roll to this size without significant resistance, and the baker who is used to the more demanding wheat-only matzah dough will find the rolling of spelt matzah somewhat startlingly easy. Do not interpret this ease as an invitation to rush: roll deliberately and evenly, rotating frequently, and achieve the correct thinness — approaching translucency — with patience rather than speed.
Dock thoroughly and bake on a preheated griddle or stone at high heat for the same timing as Recipe 16 — sixty to ninety seconds per side on a griddle, four to five minutes in the oven. Watch the color carefully: spelt matzah browns faster than wheat matzah because the natural sugars in spelt caramelize more readily than those of hard wheat, and the difference between beautifully golden and beginning to char is a smaller window of time than in the wheat preparations. The correct finish is a warm, deep golden brown — slightly deeper in average tone than the wheat matzah — with scattered dark spots at the thinnest points, and a surface aroma that is distinctly sweeter and nuttier than the wheat preparations.
The finished spelt matzah will be more tender and slightly more pliable when warm than the wheat preparations, firming fully to rigidity as it cools. It has a better keeping quality than the barley matzah and a somewhat richer initial flavor than the wheat preparations, and it is the flatbread I would choose to serve alongside the sweet preparations of Chapter 7 if I were building a Level 3 festival table from this chapter alone.
Recipe 19 — Surface-Treated Level 3 Flatbreads: A Framework
Level: 1, 2, and 3
A note on this recipe: the preparations above are all plain flatbreads, seasoned internally with salt and flavored primarily by the character of the grain and the fat. The following is not a recipe in the strict sense but a framework for the application of surface treatments to any of the Level 3 flatbreads in this chapter — treatments that remain fully appropriate at Level 3 because they involve no leavening of any kind and no mechanical technique beyond a gentle pressing of surface elements against the rolled dough before baking.
Surface treatments at Level 3 do more work than they do at Levels 1 and 2, because the interior of the Level 3 flatbread is intentionally simple and the surface is therefore proportionally more important as a source of flavor, texture, and aromatic complexity. The baker who masters the surface treatments available at Level 3 will find that the range of preparations this chapter can produce is considerably wider than the list of recipes suggests.
The surface treatments available at Level 3 are those that can be applied to a rolled, uncooked flatbread by pressing, scattering, or brushing without any mechanical technique that incorporates air:
Seeds, scattered over the surface of a rolled flatbread and pressed very lightly with the palm of the hand to encourage adhesion before the piece goes onto the griddle, contribute flavor, texture, and aromatic complexity that develop further as the seeds toast against the hot iron. Sesame, black sesame, caraway, nigella, poppy, and dried coriander are all appropriate. A light scattering is more effective than a heavy one: too many seeds prevent the dough surface from contacting the griddle directly and reduce the characteristic spotty browning of the plain flatbread.
Coarse salt, applied as a light scattering over the surface of an oil-enriched preparation before baking, produces the small intensifications of salt flavor distributed across the surface that I described in Chapter 4. It is one of the single most effective flavor improvements available at Level 3 and is underused in most household productions because it seems too simple to be worth noting. It is worth noting.
Dried herbs, crumbled and pressed gently into the surface of a rolled flatbread before baking, toast against the griddle and develop a concentrated, slightly caramelized herb character that is distinctly different from and considerably more complex than the character of herbs incorporated into the dough itself. Rosemary, thyme, dried marjoram, and dried oregano all work well in this application. The herbs should be applied after rolling and before transfer to the griddle rather than pressed into the dough before rolling, because rolling over surface herbs produces uneven dough thickness around the herb pieces and irregular browning as a result.
A light brush of olive oil or melted fat, applied to the surface of a fully baked hot flatbread immediately after it comes off the griddle, produces a result quite different from oil incorporated into the dough: the oil on the surface toasts against the residual heat of the flatbread and develops a bright, clean fat flavor that is more immediately aromatic than the fat incorporated into the interior. This treatment is particularly effective on the water-only matzah of Recipe 15, where the interior fat content is minimal and the surface oil provides a welcome enrichment. It is applied after baking and therefore involves no technique that could be confused with mechanical leavening.
Garlic, rubbed over the surface of a hot flatbread directly from a cut clove immediately after baking, produces one of the most characteristically Bravian of all flatbread preparations. The heat of the flatbread releases the garlic oils onto the surface in a way that raw garlic pressed into the dough before baking does not achieve, and the combination of toasted flatbread surface and fresh garlic oil is deeply savory and deeply good. This treatment requires no recipe beyond the instruction to cut a garlic clove in half and rub it firmly across the surface of the hot bread immediately after it comes off the griddle, then add a drizzle of good oil and a pinch of salt. It is the preparation I make for myself at the end of a long day of festival baking, and I have never tired of it.
Storing and Serving Level 3 Flatbreads
The storage and serving of Level 3 flatbreads requires somewhat different consideration from the Level 1 and Level 2 preparations, because the absence of any fat enrichment in the water-only preparations of Recipe 15 means those preparations stale and become more brittle with time in a way that oil-enriched preparations do not.
The water-only matzah of Recipe 15, once fully cooled, should be stored in a dry place in a loose cloth covering that allows air circulation. It will remain at its best quality for two to three days after baking and will continue to be serviceable for the full seven days of the feast, becoming progressively more brittle and more cracker-like in character as the days pass. Some households consider the increasing dryness of the feast-week matzah over the seven days to be part of the character of the season and make no effort to slow it, baking a fresh batch on the first day only and eating through it over the week. Others bake every other day to maintain a fresher product. Both are sound approaches.
The oil-enriched matzah of Recipe 16, the barley preparation of Recipe 17, and the spelt preparation of Recipe 18 all keep better than the water-only preparation because their fat content slows staling. These preparations will be at their best for three to four days after baking.
Serving Level 3 flatbreads at the Passover table requires no elaboration beyond what the table itself provides: the bread is what it is, and it is served as it is. For the subsequent days of the feast, the flatbreads are appropriate alongside any savory preparation, broken into pieces for dipping and scooping, or rolled loosely around a filling as an approximation of the wraps of Chapter 6, though the Level 3 flatbread will not flex as freely as a purpose-made wrap without cracking. For the sweet festival table, the oil-enriched preparations pair well with honey and with soft fresh cheese in a combination that is among the oldest and most naturally occurring on the Bravian festival table.
A Final Word on the Classic Preparations
The preparations in this chapter are, as I said at the beginning, a curriculum more than a collection of recipes. The baker who works through them — who makes the water-only matzah of Recipe 15 until she can produce a consistent result without consulting the instructions, who learns to feel the difference between a barley dough that is ready to roll and one that needs more rest, who develops an eye for the color that indicates a fully baked Level 3 flatbread at high heat — will have learned something about baking that cannot be learned in any other way and cannot be learned quickly.
My mother knew this, though she would not have expressed it in these terms. She simply made the bread, year after year, with the full attention of her capable and serious hands, and the bread was always good in the way that things made with full attention and long practice are always good: not because they are flashy or elaborate, but because they are exactly what they are and nothing less.
That is the aspiration of this chapter and of this level of baking. To be exactly what you are and nothing less. I leave it with you to practice.
Chapter 12: Oil-Enriched Level 3 Breads begins on the following page.
