Flatbread Pizzas

Flatbread pizzas based dished typically found in Europe to the Middle East to name a few here:

Coca, Spain, Pizzas from Italy, Tarte Flambée, Pissaladiere, Galettes  from France, Lángos, Hungary, Adjaruli Khachapuri, Georgia Lahmajoun from Armenia/Turkey, Manoosheh from Lebanon,

France /Italy a vegan fusion of a White Pizza from Rome with an Alsatian-German type Tarte Flambee

My wife doesn’t like cooked onion and too much fat, and so if you remove the bacon and onion from the Tarte flambe, you would be left with a white pizza with Fromage balance and crème fresh. So for the vegan version, we will substitute the dairy with fresh homemade Tofu. Then we add spinach and mushrooms. Of course, you can top it with anything you like. We also had an Indian flour mix that I kept in the freezer, which is typically used for Roti. I decided to ferment it with whole wheat sourdough for a few hours to make the bread better digestible.    

Yesterday I made fresh Tofu from scratch. There are tons of videos out there that show you how to do it, and so I will keep the description of essential steps and tips.  I have followed several online recipes, but not all are good, and this is what you need to look for:

1. The most crucial info.  The recipe must include a cooking process because Soybeans (also lentils and some other beans) have enzymes that make them difficult to digest. These are destroyed during the cooking process.
2. Dehulling of the beans is not necessary but gives a better product. Also, the remaining Okara can be used in bread as it contains high protein and fiber. Still, I freeze this in portions because I believe too much is not suitable for your digestion. I read that making tempeh out it makes it more digestible, which seems logical knowing about the enzymatic breakdown of longer proteins and polysaccharides during the culturing process. All my attempts so far failed and ended in the trash can. Indeed, I will try again and will update the site.
3. Dehulling process: Usually, I did it by hand, but it was a nasty wet process that took hours. Just recently, I tried to Kitchen aid with a flat beater, which was a game-changer. I soaked added the beans with some water and put it on the first and second set, and it worked well. Then use a colander. I chose to use an old Salad centrifuge and fill it with water. Then I use a tea sieve for fishing out the transparent skins that float on top. Dehulled soybeans split like peanuts in half. Stir and fish out more. I know it is tendinous. You can check the ratio of beans with the skin to those that are split. If necessary, repeat the process until you are satisfied.  
4. For my first attempts in making soy milk, I used a large pot for cooking, a mixer (Vitamix) and cheesecloth for filtering. The cleanup was painful, in particular, when you are using a metal pot, where a sticky gue builds up on the bottom that likes to burn and forms a nasty crust. Besides burning can make the flavor bitter. So if you are doing it this way then use a big non-stick pot. A game change was the use of a soymilk maker. It is straightforward and convenient. Still, I use at the last step a Vitamix and crush the Okara more and use a fine-meshed cheesecloth-bag. Clean-up is much easier now.
5. The tofu making is similar to making farmers cheese by adding a coagulant to warm milk. For Tofu, you heat the soy milk to 180F and add either acid or Nigari. The curds will be collected in cheesecloth and which is pressed in a Tofu press and cooled down. The result is a firm, moist, fresh tofu cake. We cut it in three equal pieces and sealed them in glass containers for the refrigerator and freezer.

Here is the recipe at fist for Soy milk, which is the necessary ingredient for making Tofu:

Indian Flatbread flour for a sourdough pizza bread

2 cups of flour 1/3 cup of whole wheat starter and ½ cup water (add more if necessary)

We let it react for six hours and then added a little four 1 TBS of sourdough 1 tsp of malt, ¾ tsp salt a little water, and mixed and added to the dough. Kneed it again and then let it rest 4 hours more before roll flat on parchment paper. You can add anything you like. We added spinach, Tofu, and mushrooms and backed for 10-15 min at 520 F

Tip: The water amount in flours needs to be adjusted because milled grains contained different amounts of water, the coarse of the flours varieties, humidity changes the amount of adsorbed water. I freeze most of my flour for several weeks before I fill a container and let it warm up in the refrigerator before sealing it and put it in my pantry. Freezing of flours, in particular home-milled flours, reduces the chances of developing bugs. Disgusting! Yeah but more common as you might think if all ingredients are natural and not treated by radiation, or with chemicals, etc.   I had this unfortunate experience several times with Rice and Grains that I bought from a larger farmers market.  If you want to sprout the grains then you need to buy them untreated, but if you just want to mill flour then keep either the grains or their flour for several weeks in a freezer. After that, you can keep smaller batches in the refrigerator or pantry. I never had any issues.  

We dressed up and prepared the table outside. What can I say, a little romantic music with a candlelight flicker and a warm smile of my soulmate make me happy!

The verdict of our Pizza: The first one was a little undercooked. The second one was better we baked it for 15 min (reduced a little the heat to 240 F after 10 min). It was pretty good but it needs a little improvement.

Recipe for regular Pizza dough