Ancient Roman Flatbread!

Being a senior who is about to graduate and not have access to our wonderful dining center anymore, one skill I really want to improve on this year is cooking. Luckily for me, one of our Acta is to make a Roman dish. The opportunity to practice my cooking while also doing an Acta was too good for me to pass up, so today I am making a simple Roman flatbread. 

To begin, I started by making the dough. The recipe called for the use of a blender, which was a bit strange because there’s no way the Romans had a blender, but whatever. First, I measured out 250g flour on my trusty scale, and poured it into the blender. Next, I poured half a tablespoon of baking soda and half a tablespoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of oil, and a bit of water into the blender. After it was all in the blender, I hit it with 5 quick pulses to get the blending process started. After I got it started, I gradually poured some more water in while simultaneously blending. 

Now was time for the mixing. I took the dough out of the blender, added some more water, and stirred up the mix until the flour was all mixed. Now for the best part of making bread: kneading. I laid out the flour onto my cutting board and began kneading my delicious flatbread. This is definitely not easy to do well, but after a bit of practice, I got the hang of it. 

Next, I put a bit of oil into a pan so the kneaded dough wouldn’t stick to it, threw the dough in there, put a cover on top, and set a timer for 30 minutes waiting for the dough to rise. 

After it was all risen, it was time to move on to the rolling. I took the dough out the pan, slapped it back on the board, grabbed my roller, and began the rolling process. This was much easier than kneading, so it went quite well. 

Once it was rolled up, it was now time to cut it into pieces, which was super easy because of my mom’s cutting device. I cut the dough up into a bunch of edible little circles and tossed it on the stove to be cooked in a toasty medium-high heat. 5 minutes or so later, and I had completed my flatbread! 

All in all, it was a fun experience, the bread was pretty tasty, and I boosted my cooking skills and knowledge of Rome in the process. A true win-win.