Greek Cyprus Olive Garlic Bread With Lemon Zest Eliopsomi Food

GREEK CYPRUS OLIVE GARLIC BREAD WITH LEMON ZEST (ELIOPSOMI)

Steps:

• Stir together the water and sugar in a small bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the top and set aside until bubbly, 15 minutes.
• Place the 3 1/2 cups flour and salt in a large bowl and mix with a fork. Make a well in the center and add the 1/4 cup oil, the zest, garlic, olives, and yeast mixture. Stir together until fairly well mixed; then use your hands to knead the mixture into a crumbly ball.
• Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky, 10 minutes. Lightly bush the dough with oil, cover it with a cloth, and set it aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
• Lightly grease a baking sheet with oil. Punch down the dough and knead it again for 1 minutes. Pat the dough into a ball and flatten it slightly to make a round about 6 inches in diameter. Place the dough round on the prepared baking sheet and set it aside in a warm place until doubled in bulk again, about 1 1/2 hours.
• When ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 425°F.
• Place the bread in the oven and bake until quite golden, 30 minutes. Brush the top and sides of the loaf liberally with oil and continue baking until browned and hollow sounding when tapped, 5 minutes more.
• Remove the bread from the oven and cool on the baking sheet until ready to serve.
• VARIATION: Olive Cheese Bread: Olive Garlic Bread easily turns into another Cypriot loaf, a cheese and olive bread. Omit (or leave in) the garlic and lemon zest and add 1 cup grated cheese, preferably Cypriot haloumi.
• THE NONTRADITIONAL CHOICE:.
• While it is easier to use Kalamata olives (they are readily available and can be bought pitted), traditionally Cypriotic olive breads use only oil-cured or oil-and-salt-brined olives, never those that are cured even partly in vinegar, as Kalamatas are. Cyprus produces both green and black olives, plump to wrinkled, cured in numerous ways. Using Kalamata olives for the olive flatbread, the taste of the bread, while slightly tarter than the traditional, is still excellent.
• Adventures In Greek Cooking.

NO-KNEAD, EASY GREEK OLIVE BREAD

Steps:

• Pour the milk into a glass measure and stir in the yeast until it dissolves. Set aside for 10 minutes.
• In a larger bowl, mix the flour and the salt and then add the milk and the yeast, stirring gently with a wooden spoon to incorporate. At this point, the dough will still be sticky - do not add more flour. Alternatively, you can use a stand mixer equipped with a dough hook.
• Cover the bowl with a towel, place it in a warm spot and let it rise for an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 375° F. Place a 12" cast iron skillet in the oven until it is very hot.
• Add the extra virgin olive oil, the chopped olives and the oregano to the bread dough and mix well with a spatula, folding over the dough and scrapping the sides of the bowl, until well incorporated.
• Carefully remove from the oven the hot pan, line it with a piece of parchment paper and immediately add the dough, spreading and smoothing the top with a spatula.
• Transfer the hot pan to the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until it is golden brown on the top and the bottom.
• Remove from the oven and let the bread cool a bit in the pan. Lift the bread from the parchment paper and lace on a wire rack to cool.