Flatbreads, pink ribbons and broken grissini

How not to spend a fortune in the deli

May 01, 2023

If you walk into a smart delicatessen, you’ll find pretty packs of crackers and flatbreads with exorbitant price tags. You might find a box of grissini, which will inevitably be mostly broken by the time you arrive home and you’ll be doubly disappointed as you’ll have paid a lot of money for them. If you shop in the big American chain of food stores here in London, a smallish pack of Ligurian ciappe will cost you nearly ten pounds. There must be some mythical reason as to why these things are so expensive, but I can’t fathom it. Seeing as a pack of good flour will cost you a tenth of that, and you only need to add water, salt and olive oil, let me share some recipes for some snappy crisp things that are mostly easy to make, taste utterly delicious and won’t have been made in a factory.

I posted on Instagram this weekend a picture of a selection of crispy things I’d baked, and my inbox filled up with requests for the recipes. I like to share my knowledge, so today’s free newsletter is a collection of recipes for baking flavoured and plain grissini, flatbreads and rye crackers. I hope you have some sourdough discard around, if not you could go and ask a friend who does if they might spare you a couple of hundred grams. You could always order some online quite easily or if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks you could make your own.

You don’t need any particularly extravagant equipment, though you’ll need a rolling pin and a few metal trays. If you have a pasta machine to roll the dough through that’s also great, though I use the old-fashioned method with a wooden rolling pin. By the time I’ve clamped my squeaky old beast to the bench I could have rolled most of my doughs out.

As many people struggle with eating bread, I often find that crispy grissini and snappy flatbreads are always very well received. I can easily make a couple of trays of something and then have to make them again later in the day as will all have been eaten. I often can’t resist a shard of salty ciappe with a little butter and a slice of cheddar. Grissini is so very easy to make, though when using sourdough discard you do need to let the dough sit for a few hours but other than that its a very therapeutic way to pass an hour or so. Ciappe on the other hand are very quick to put together. You’ll never buy another packet again once you’ve tried these. I put handfuls of the fragile shards and sticks into plain ceramic jugs and leave them on the island in the kitchen where I know they’ll be eaten over the day. They look pretty, they taste good and they're very straightforward to make.

Ciappe is one of the most simple flat, snappy breads to make (along with being one of the most expensive you’ll buy in ribbon-festooned packets). There’s no need for any sourdough starter for these so they’re also a good starting point if you’ve not baked before. You need just flour, water, olive oil and salt. You can dress the recipe up with seeds, herbs, truffle oil, citrus zest, chilli… pretty much anything as they’re basically a vehicle to carry a flavour.

Ciappe

You’ll need

500 g fine wheat flour / Italian 00

250 ml cold water

50 ml olive oil

7 g salt plus sea salt for sprinkling

How to

Preheat the oven to 150°c

Put all the ingredients in a bowl, and mix together quickly to form a ball. Put on the work bench and knead briefly for about thirty seconds but no more, as you don’t want the gluten to develop.

Roll into a long tube and cut into equal pieces weighing around seventy grams each

Flour the bench and roll them out into long, thin, (really thin) flat shapes, prick with a fork and place them onto floured trays.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, then put into the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Depending on your oven they are ready when they are a pale golden colour.

Take them out and let them cool.

Congratulations, you have just saved ten pounds.

Sourdough grissini

This recipe is a little more involved but it is still very straightforward. You will need a little sourdough discard, so if you don’t have any, ask around or get some online. If you want to know how to create a sourdough starter, send me a message and I’ll give you instructions.

These are a million miles away from anything you’ll buy. The pulling technique in my video from last night is easy to learn and is a very good excuse to spend some time in the kitchen. I make these most days and they’re very quick and easy once they’ve rested.

You’ll need

260g flour

120 ml water

85g starter (discard)

30ml olive oil

5 g caster sugar

5g sea salt

How to

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and bring them firmly together with your hands.

Knead on a table for 5 minutes.

Roll out using a little flour, to a rectangle approx 30 cm x 8 cm

Place on a lined tray, brush with a little more olive oil and wrap in cling film. Leave in a warm place for about 3 hours so it puffs a little and feels slightly spongy to the touch. It won’t rise much, but you’ll feel the difference.

Using a little flour, cut into approx 20 strips around 2 cm wide on a lightly floured table, then using two hands pick up each piece and pull gently to about 30 cm

Place on a tray dusted with fine polenta, placing them quite close together

Drizzle lightly with olive oil and a pinch of crushed sea salt, then bake at 155°c for about 30 to 40 minutes or till lightly golden.

Cool on a rack and that’s it.

Black Olive Grissini

I make this in exactly the same way as the plain version above, though after kneading and before rolling out, I smear a couple of spoonfuls of black olive purée through the dough, folding it together to incorporate the black sticky paste.

It rests and cooks in exactly the same way.

Rye and honey water biscuits

These crackers are perfect with a chunk of cheddar. They do go a little brown in the oven due to the honey, so keep your eye on them, turn them often and rotate the tray at least once.

You’ll need:

100g Wholemeal flour

50g rye flour

1 teaspoon honey

115g discard

2 tsp poppy seeds

1/2 teaspoon salt

How to:

Simply mix all the ingredients together with 1 to 2 teaspoons of water to form a stiff ball, knead for a minute till smooth, then wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour.

Roll out as thin as possible, a pasta machine is good for this, going up to setting 5.

Cut the biscuits into the shape you like and lay them neatly on a lined baking sheet

Spray them or brush with a little water, then sprinkle again with a few more poppy seeds, a few sunflower seeds and a pinch of crushed salt

Bake at 180° for about 7 minutes, then turn the biscuits over and rotate the tray.

After another 8 to 10 minutes, they should be ready. Take them out and let them cool on the tray.

Eat them with butter and cheese.

And there you have it. Four recipes that work, and are an excellent way of showing your baking skills to those you love. I hope you’ve read this early, as it’s a bank holiday here in the UK, leaving you the day ahead to bake bread.

Until Thursday,

William