Msemmen – Moroccan Flatbread from the Woodfired Oven
This is a fantastic stretched and folded flat bread from Morocco, fantastic served for breakfast or brunch. The stretching and folding causes the msemmen to pu ll apart and crisp up to give a flaky texture created by all the layers. It sounds a complicated process but as with anything, a little practise will make everything much clearer.
It’s also a fantastic way to use up left over pizza dough; it’s worth making extra pizza dough so you can have it ready in the morning for msemmen; just leave it shaped into dough balls, cover and leave in the fridge overnight before bringing back to room temperature to work with. If you haven’t got any leftover dough, you can just rustle some up some fresh dough – 500g 00 flour, 10g, salt, 5g dried yeast and 350g water; mix this all together, cover and leave to prove; shape into 5-6 dough balls, cover and leave to relax for a couple of hours and then use.
We’re serving ours with a tropical fruit compote which is super refreshing with a hit of lime.
Watch how David makes them on our youtube channel and off you go!
Ingredients for 6 msemmen
600g left over pizza dough or fresh dough as made above
1 small pineapple, peeled and with the eyes taken out
1 ripe mango
1 lime, finely grated zest and juice
2 star anise and 1 cinnamon stick
200g butter, melted
Semolina
Olive oil
Oven State, equipment etc
A heat deflector is very useful and available in our online shop!
Flat pan for cooking the msemmen and lidded pan for the compote
Method
- Chop up the mango and pineapple into evenly sized pieces and put in the lidded pan with the star anise, cinnamon stick, lime zest and juice. Put the lid on the pan and put it in the oven away from the fire to cook gently.
- Put a little olive oil on your work surface and spread it around.
- Put the first dough ball on the oily surface and spread it out super thinly using your fingertips. Try not to vigorously stretch it otherwise the dough will energise and spring back.
- Brush the dough with a little melted butter and sprinkle over about a dessert spoonful of the semolina.
- Fold up the dough, rebutter and re-semolina following how David does it in the video.
- Repeat this for the rest of the dough balls heating your frying pan in the oven at the same time.
- Go back to the first msemmen, stretch it out a little and put a little butter in the pan.
- Put this first msemmen in the pan and put it in the oven to cook by the fire.
- Halfway through the cooking, flip the msemmen over and when it’s crispy and golden brown on both sides, it’s ready. Take it out of the pan and keep it warm while you repeat this with the other msemmens you’ve prepared.
- Check the fruit by inserting the point of a sharp knife to see if it’s tender and keep to one side when it is. Just before serving stir in the lime juice to taste – put in a little at a time and taste it rather than all at once and making it too sour.
- Serve the warm msemmen with the compote and some Greek yoghurt and runny honey.
Alternatives
- add a little fresh mint to the compote
- use different fruits with the msemmen – whatever you have, fresh or cooked – strawberries, raspberries, orange segments, kiwi, cooked apples are all fantastic.
- make a savoury msemmen for lunch using some herby/garlic butter or some spices sprinkled on with the semolina.
- sprinkle a little ground cinnamon on to the msemmen as you’re folding with the semolina
- serve as a dessert with vanilla ice cream and caramelised bananas
Happy cooking – hope that’s given you some ideas of what to do with some leftover pizza dough. Do give it a try it’s really excellent as breakfast or brunch.
Back soon with more woodfired workshops. Remember if you like what we’re doing you can support us by buying a virtualy coffee here – just a fiver! Thanks so much to all of you who have done so already.
Holly and Davidx