Jill’s Grill
Jill’s Grill
Method: Cheaters Bread Sticks
Whenever we’ve visited our friends in Vicenza, Italy (it’s a short train ride west of Venice) we always go to a lively family-run restaurant that always has amazing food. Each table has a tower of bread sticks wrapped in aseptic plastic and by the end of meal, the tower has disappeared and the wrappers are all over the tables and floor. I like sitting down and having a ready-to-eat munch while deciding on the menu! These bread sticks don’t taste anything like the ones we had in Vicenza, because you have to be in Vicenza to have the same experience! Last week I blogged about the variety of Tante Fanny pastry products that work in a pinch if you’re having friends over for a last minute meal or don’t have time to actually cook anything from scratch. Look for Tante Fanny Frischer Blech Pizzateig available in Berlin at Reichelt, Kaisers, Real, or other grocers. You can find it where the fresh pasta products are. Inside is one sheet of pizza dough with it’s own sheet of baking paper. Unroll the whole package and voila!, you have one perfect piece of dough to make your own pizza. Unfortunately the dough is really thin for pizza and it’s too flat for my liking. The dough makes excellent bread sticks though.
Cheaters Bread Sticks
1 Tante Fanny pizza dough Tante Fanny Frischer Blech Pizzateig
(of course making your own is far superior - recipe)
caraway seeds (kümmel in German)
Himalayan sea salt
You will need a baking sheet, parchment/baking paper, rolling pin, pizza cutter
Preheat your oven to 175C
Unroll the dough onto your baking paper and remove the manufacturer’s baking paper. Yours is bigger in diameter.
Generously sprinkle caraway seeds on the flat pizza dough, making sure to include the edges of the dough. Repeat the process with salt. You are the judge of how much salt you want to use. I was generous with the salt because I wanted to recreate the flavour of a “kummelweck” bun from a restaurant in Buffalo, New York.
With your rolling pin, apply a firm pressure while rolling it up and down the dough. You want to press the seeds and salt into the dough. Don’t press too hard because you don’t want to overstretch the dough.
Take your pizza cutter, rolling pin, and cut, using the same technique as the Party Bites but thinner, approximately 2-3 cm wide. Gently lift the dough and turn each end an opposite direction and lay it on the new parchment paper. The first two might seem awkward but you’ll get the hang of it. However you lay the dough on the paper will be how it is baked; so I would recommend you lay them all straight so they are uniform without any odd curves or bends!
When all of the strips are cut and rolled, bake for approximately 15-20 minutes. Check from time to time to make sure they don’t burn. Everyone’s oven is a little different. Remove from the oven, let them cool then transfer them to a dish, tall glass, vase, or appropriate serving vessel.
The varieties of toppings are endless: Lemon zest and brown sugar, half-roasted tomatoes and basil, Go! Veggie Parmesan with sunflower seeds... use your imagination!!
Enjoy!
from my Berlin kitchen
Saturday 9 November 2013