I tried something new tonight. My husband is away visiting one of our children, and for me that is a good time to experiment with a dish that I may want to cook for us both in the future. It used one skillet and took me back to Venice Beach, Florida, some five decades ago. I was young. My first Greek food…the food that started me on a journey loving Greek spices, meats, yogurt sauces….all of those things, was Souvlaki. At a little Greek drive up, I still remember the pita bread, the grilled beef, tomatoes, onions and that fabulous tsaziki sauce that brought it all together.

Tonight, I made the flatbread, then cooked the chicken in the same pan. Please don’t be intimidated. This was the easiest sourdough recipe I have ever used. Mix it up, let it rest 30 minutes, cut it in pieces and cook it in the skillet. You do need a sourdough starter, and I hope if you don’t have one you will simply add flour and water together and get one going. It takes about one week to make a bubbly starter, and the longer you use it, the better and more reactive the wild yeast makes it go. I am now cultivating two starters…one with organic white wheat and one with a hard red wheat flour just to see how it responds. If you want help finding a link to a sourdough starter, please message me and I’ll send you the link to the instructions I used.

The Flat Bread

Similar to a pita, this flat bread begins with 1.5 cups of organic unbleached wheat flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat bread flour placed in a medium bowl. (Or you can use 2 cups unbleached wheat flour). Mix it together with 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp kosher salt.

Then, you add one tablespoon of olive oil, 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup sourdough discard. (Discard is the thing that happens each time you feed your sourdough. I save mine for discard recipes and today was the perfect day to feed my sourdough.)

These ingredients are all mixed together to form a shaggy dough, then kneaded and folded on a floured surface for about 2-3 minutes. I used a sheet pan to prepare this dough. Wet your hands if the dough does not easily incorporate all of the flour. Once the dough comes together in a smooth ball, cover it with clear wrap for 30 minutes to let the gluten develop and make the dough more workable.

Filling

This flatbread dish is filled with chicken and sautéed onions, but you can fill your flatbread anyway you want. Sliced flank steak, gyro meat, chicken, even spicy salmon would be wonderful in this dish. Lettuce, tomato, olives.

Six-eight thin chicken cutlets are sprinkled on both sides with Italian herbs, salt and pepper and paprika. I also peel an onion, cut it in half and slice the half into long thin pieces. Set all this aside while you finish the flatbread.

Grilling the flatbread

Heat your black skillet over high heat with a little olive oil in the bottom. You will reduce the heat as you go if your stove is like mine and cooks hot.

Divide the ball of flat bread into 6 even sections and stretch each section out into a thin bread. It does not have to be a circle as long as it will fold to hold the filling, any shape is okay. You can push it down on a board to make it thin, but I prefer to stretch it to see some windowpanes and have some thicker areas. This is a rustic bread, and I can envision sitting outside around a fire with a flat skillet cooking this bread and sharing it among friends. Probably gonna do that soon.

Once the skillet is hot, add a bit of olive oil and put a flattened piece of dough into the skillet and allow one side to brown. Brush the top side with a little olive oil before turning it over to brown the other side. Once the flat bread is browned, remove it and add another piece until all six pieces are cooked.

Back to the filling

Wipe out your hot skillet with a paper towel and add fresh olive oil. Add the seasoned chicken cutlets to the skillet and cook them, turning once browned until they reach 165 degrees. You will probably need to cook half of it and then the other half—but it cooks fast. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pan and add the onions to the pan with a pinch of salt. Allow them to become transparent. Then remove them to another dish.

Slice the chicken on the diagonal to create short strips of chicken

Assemble

Plate a flatbread, and add the desired amount of onions, then top with skillet chicken (and tomatoes and lettuce if desired), and Tsaziki sauce. Frankly, I purchase my Tsaziki sauce. There are so many good ones on the market, so I opt for convenience with this item.

• 

• 

And there it is. I literally stood over the kitchen island and ate my delicious chicken souvlaki on sourdough flat bread because I couldn’t wait….and because my husband wasn’t home. Haha.

• 

• 

One flatbread sandwich is a serving and this recipe serves six.

I hope you will try this. There are many informative posts about starting sourdough or message me for links to get started. There is nothing like fresh bread and it costs so little to make.

Hope you like this one. It was simply delicious.

Buon Appetito!

Your Iron Maiden—

Kim Orsini