Chickpea Flatbread with Parsley Olive Salad

This recipe has been in my Try NOW pile for a couple of weeks.  It's just been awaiting the right time to make it.  Sunday morning felt like the right time. 


Saturday evening we went to Civic Theatre to see Amadeus.  Connie said he knew I wanted to leave asap the third time I put my head on his shoulder.  I did NOT like the play.  Not that it was poorly acted or that the set was bad.  I just didn't like the play.  We came home at intermission and curled up in our chairs and read the paper.  Well, confession here.  I read the paperS.  I'm a couple of weeks behind.  Sunday morning I got up really early and signed on to the office computer and got a lot done.  As in enough that I didn't feel like I had to go to the office for a couple of hours before the Colts game.  All of the sudden, I had time to make the chickpea flatbread. 


I really had no idea what to expect with this.   So, what did we think?  Amazing.  I loved the way the flavors played together.  Connie would've given this a five instead of a four (on a scale of one to five) if it'd had less "green stuff on top."  I thought the amount of said green stuff was perfect and gave it a five.   The only downside is the prep time.  You need to leave the batter sitting for half an hour then bake it for an equal amount of time.   So, this isn't something you decide to whip up for lunch...  But, it's worth every minute of the time!

Now, before we get to the salad, I've got to show you some of my favorite photos from a bit ago.  My good friend, Joe, who's the grand poobah of our producers group, came into town to visit.  My colleague Grant, from Greencastle, and his associate, Josh, joined Joe and Connie and me at St. Elmos for dinner.  If you've never heard of St. Elmo's, it's THE place to go for steak in Indy.  They're world renowned for their shrimp cocktail.  It's usually wicked hot but this time I didn't even break a sweat.  Usually, the sweat is dripping down my brow.  Here's Joe and Grant and me:

But, that's not the fun part.  Here's the fun part:

That's one of the THREE boxes of goodies I took home.  One had spinach and potatoes and the other half of my steak.  The other two had bones.  Dog bones.  Annie was in her element:

Poor Doggie Woggie.  Has to have good doggly manners and wait until she's given the bone.  It's just like when we get home from the office in the evening.  A doggie is expected to SIT in the back seat until her human releases her from the car.  She's now made it through three of the five bones.  Happy Doggie!




Chickpea Flatbread with Parsley Olive Salad


Ingredients:

For the Flatbread:


1 1/4 cups hummus (about a 10-ounce container)

Generous pinch of ground cumin

Generous pinch of dried rosemary

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper


For the Salad:

1 cup fresh parsley leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

3 scallions, thinly sliced

1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 T lemon juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions:

First, you need to make the batter and let it sit for half an hour.  Combine the hummus, cumin, rosemary

and 1/2 c hot water.  Then, whisk in one tablespoon of olive oil followed by the flour. 

While the batter is resting, preheat your oven to 450 and make your salad.  Combine the parsley, green pepper, green onions and kalamata olives. 

Toss that with at tablespoon each of olive oil and lemon juice.

When the batter has been resting for about 20 of its 30 minutes, start heating a 12" cast iron skillet on the stovetop - that's assuming you've got an electric stove and not a gas stove that'll actually heat quickly.  At any rate, you want the cast iron skillet to be pretty screaming hot.  At 30 minutes, you're going to put the last tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet, pour in the batter and schmear it around to level it then pop the whole thing in the oven.  The oil will pop and spatter so be very careful.  The recipe said to cook this for 30 minutes then put shards of the flatbread on the plates.  Mine cut into lovely quarters. 

And, one edge was overcooked but that's because I've got a lousy oven.

 

adapted from Foodtv.com