I had seen these on 101 Cookbooks a year or so ago, and had filed them away in my mind and my computer without ever even reading the recipe. Then I felt like baking something snacky yesterday. Somehow I ran across this recipe again. This time, I actually read through it. When I did, I realized that this is just baked pasta! It's eggless dough, and has more olive oil than would ordinarily be included in pasta, but the method is identical, even down to rolling out the pasta.

Salty crackers sounded pretty delicious to me, and I knew Jeanette would love them. She loves all salty snacks. So I set about making them. I used weight to measure the ingredients, as I nearly always do, because it is vastly more accurate than volume. Everyone should own a kitchen scale.

The crackers were very easy, and very familiar if you've ever made pasta, only these are far less temperamental. If ever there were a recipe on EatFoo that everyone ought to try, regardless of skill level, it's this. It doesn't require any special equipment or ingredients, it doesn't take too long, it's very forgiving, and it's delicious. I ended up making some of them into shapes to use in a dish that night (picture at right). I'll post that one later. For now, here's my recipe for these guys. You can actually flavor them with pretty much any dry spice or other dry ingredient, just by adding it along with the flours, or, alternately, by sprinkling it on just before baking.

Olive Oil Crackers

• 75g AP flour (1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tsp, but you should really have a kitchen scale by now)
• 75g semolina flour (roughly 1/2 cup, but again, get a scale), can substitute another 75g AP flour if you can't find semolina
• 30g extra virgin olive oil (around 2 tbsp plus 1 tsp)
• 55g warm water (around 1/4 cup)
• 3g salt (a thimble full, or whatever ridiculous measure you insist on using instead of buying a scale)

Combine the ingredients using the standard pasta method (there are a million videos on YouTube for this--just search for homemade fresh pasta dough):

In a large mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients and whisk them briefly to mix. Make a little fist-sized indentation in the center of the flours, and the water and the olive oil to that "well." With a fork, stir the wet ingredients in a circle, taking a bit of flour into the circle with each turn. Eventually, when the flours are all incorporated, begin kneading the dough in the bowl, adding a bit of flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking. Eventually, when the dough has fully come together, transfer it to a lightly floured work surface (such as a clean kitchen counter) and continue kneading for ten minutes or so. Shape into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest on the counter for half an hour.

Unwrap the ball of dough and cut it into four equal pieces (each will weigh around 65g). Return three pieces to the plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. Roll one piece out until is very thin, using a pasta rolling machine if you have one (I rolled it to setting 5 on my KitchenAid attachment). If you don't have a rolling machine, simply roll it out between two sheet of plastic wrap until it is very thin, around 1/16 of an inch. Cut the rolled out dough into any shapes you want and put them on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with flour, preferably semolina. Pierce each piece every inch or so in order to keep it from puffing up. Sprinkle each piece with large-grained salt. I used Maldon sea salt. Then press gently to press the salt grains into the dough to ensure they stay on after baking.

Bake at 450F until golden. Don't bake until they're uniformly golden, or else they'll taste overly toasty. You want the edges to be quite golden, and the center to have hardened and perhaps darkened barely perceptibly. I determined that, in my oven, using the baking sheets I was using and the pieces sitting on a thin layer of semolina in the baking sheet, that it took 8-9 minutes to achieve the desired doneness. The crackers should be allowed to cool a bit before eating. It makes them crunchier.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/06/06 @ 5:23 | Comments (0) | Baking, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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