Lagana
A flat sesame-covered loaf dimpled all over with the fingers, so it stays flat instead of rising into a loaf.
Vegan.
Ingredients
- 600 g strong white flour
- 7 g fast-action yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 12 g salt
- 400 ml warm water
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 80 g sesame seeds
- water, for brushing
Method
- IT IS DIMPLED ALL OVER WITH THE FINGERTIPS AND THAT IS WHAT KEEPS IT FLAT. Pressed right through to the tray in rows, the dough cannot lift evenly: it rises in ridges between the dimples and stays about 2 cm thick instead of doming into a loaf. Skip it and you have made an ordinary flat bread with sesame on top.
- THE SESAME GOES ON WET DOUGH AND IS PRESSED IN. Brushed with water first and the seeds scattered thickly, then patted down with the flat of the hand. Scattered onto dry dough, most of them are on the tray by the time it is baked.
- A VERY WET DOUGH, about 67 per cent water, and it is meant to be slack. It is handled with wet hands rather than floured ones; flour worked in at this stage tightens it and the crumb goes dense.
- Yeast and sugar into the warm water, 10 minutes until frothy.
- Flour and salt in a bowl, the yeast water and oil added, and mixed to a sticky dough. Kneaded in the bowl with a wet hand 8 minutes, stretching and folding rather than pushing.
- Risen 1 hour 30 minutes, covered, until doubled and full of bubbles.
- Tipped onto a well-oiled tray and, with oiled hands, pressed out gently into a long oval about 2 cm thick. NOT rolled -- a rolling pin drives the air out.
- Rested on the tray 30 minutes, covered.
- Brushed generously with water.
- DIMPLED: fingertips pressed straight down through the dough to the tray, in rows about 3 cm apart, over the whole surface.
- Sesame scattered thickly and patted in.
- Baked at 220C for 20 to 25 minutes until deep gold and hollow-sounding underneath.
- Cooled on a rack. It is at its best the day it is made and makes good toast afterwards.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Greece · All recipes