This may seem obvious to others but I've not had cause to use this before....

I've just returned from Cyprus and as I tend to do, I try to work out recipes to use at home. Well one of the things I wanted to make was the bread thats always on the table in all the restaurants / cafés. Its a very simple basic bread but wasn't quite like the normal English bread, as it just slightly more cake like in consistancy.

Obviously I looked it up on the internet and most of the recipes show the special festival breads but one site mentioned that duram wheat was used in the past to make the bread when there was a shortage of normal flour, this gives it a slightly yellow colour, which this bread did.

So I tried to find it...!!... it just didn't seem to exist in all the normal shops... (to cut a long story short).. I found it when I started reading the backs of all the products that were anything like flour... turns out its "Semolina" the stuff you make puddings from..!..

I had several trys to get the mix right but eventually worked out..

1 1/2 cups* of strong bread flour

1/2 cup* of duram wheat flour

7g of dried yeast (thats one sachet)

1 tsp of salt

50ml of extra virgin olive oil

and enough warm water to combine it all.

Seive the flour into a bowl, mix in the salt, yeast and oil, then add warm water a little at a time. Once mixed and needed shape it into a flat round disc and allow to rise.

Once done, bake in a hot oven for about 20-30 minutes.

Allow to cool before slicing, works great for dipping in soups or getting the last drops of sauce off your plate.

* Cups in this recipe are not measuring cups, they are coffee mugs (so I'd guess 1 of these cups is about 2 real measuring cups worth)

Steve

Thank you for the recipe Steven. I will give it a try when I get back to UK. I have to make a sour dough bread too. I have been given some recipe ideas and have bought a bread book to, with the help of BBC food message boards. My first attempt before I left, wasn't sour enough.

Durum web definitions:

"Durum is wheat with hard dark-colored kernels high in gluten and used for bread and pasta; grown especially in southern Russia, North Africa, and northern central North America"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

"Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum durum) is the only tetraploid species of wheat widely cultivated today. Durum is the hardest of all wheats. Its high protein content and gluten strength make durum good for pasta and bread. It is not, however, good for cakes, which should be made from soft wheat or they will be tough, because of the high gluten content of durum." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durum_wheat

"Durum is a high quality wheat variety mainly used in pasta and semolina production."

Thanks for that, I've got pictures as well (does that surprise anyone ?)..

Its odd that using it in bread makes the bread more like a cake consistancy yet its no good for cakes.. !...

I am not surprised at all! You should take some more of the things you cook from this website and collect them. I am going to do a course on manipulating and putting pictures on the website in January 2007. Kavey and Pete don't have that much free time, bless them. I will be able to receive and add pictures then.

I had a durham bread with herbs for lunch in a restaurant yesterday, someplace called Macaroni Grill I think. It was superb, eaten dipped in a mix of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Mamta

ooh sounds very nice...