So I know a person or two who don't like eating carbohydrates because they hate happiness or something. I'm not sure. That's what I've been able to glean. Anyway, they like this lavash bread stuff, which is just really fucking flat bread that's low in carbs. Just for a comparison: a slice of white bread has (on average) 15g of carbs, a slice of whole wheat bread has (on average) 12g of carbs, and half of a lavash flatbread has (on average) 8g of carbs. Significantly less, right? So we're cooking with that shit.
I decided to make a chicken flatbread with it because I wanted pizza and the bread was flat, so that was a win-win. I cubed up some chicken legs, seasoned them with salt, and browned them in olive oil. I made sure not to cook it all the way through since it was going into the oven and I didn't want to dry that shit out. I decided to use olive oil since this meal was kind of Italian-ish and so is olive oil or something. I also didn't want to fuck with cutting butter, as simple of a process as that is. I was tired, it was late, just pour from the bottle and be fucking done.
After the chicken was brown, I pulled it out of the pan and dumped in some sliced mushroom and chopped pearl onions (still working my way through leftover Thanksgiving ingredients). I didn't sauté them for long; just wanted to soften the mushrooms and sweat the onions a little. I did add a little salt to draw out some moisture and give a little flavor, but the seasoning of toppings was kept to a minimum.
While the chicken, mushrooms, and onions were cooking, I also started on my sauce. I began with some minced red onion and a few minced cloves of garlic frying in olive oil, then, when the garlic was getting just a little brown and crispy, I added a palmful of red pepper flakes, mixed them in, then dumped in about 2/3 of my little can of tomato paste (also a Thanksgiving leftover). I stirred the tomato paste around until it was getting a little darker, then added in some fresh thyme leaves and chopped Italian parsley. See? This shit's totally Italian.
Once the sauce started smelling good, I poured in a bit of red wine and cut the heat down a little bit. You've gotta add something to change the paste into sauce, and wine is (almost) always a good choice. I worked the wine into the paste pretty thoroughly, which took a bit of stirring, but it finally got all thinned out. I added a couple pinches of salt and let it simmer.
Kept at a lower heat, the sauce thickened up quite nicely. More importantly it tasted amazing - always a plus. I took it off the heat and started making my pizz-flatbread.
Look at that shit. Almost like pizza sauce, right? I may or may not have based my sauce recipe off of Clemenza's spaghetti sauce scene in The Godfather. Strike that. I did base it largely off of that scene. I really want a fucking cannoli. Anyway, I just put a piece of the flatbread down on a foil-lined cookie sheet, then scooped a couple spoonfuls of sauce into the middle and used the back of the spoon to spread it around. I left a bit of space from the edge clear because I had no idea what was going to happen if I covered it.
Next, I just covered the sauced area with chicken, sliced black olives, and the mushrooms and pearl onions, then topped it all with some grated parmesan and asiago. The last step, of course, was tossing it into the oven.
I had my oven preheated to 350 because that's the magical baking temperature for everything, right? The chicken and onion got cooked through, the unsauced edge got nice and crispy, and the cheese got all melty in about 5 minutes or so. Maybe. I don't fucking know. I just kept peeking in the oven to see how it looked.
I probably could have gone with a higher temperature, I could definitely have added more cheese, and there are plenty of other changes that could be made, but that shit still tasted great, and it was because the sauce was just perfect. Just a hint of heat from the red pepper flakes, a rich, vibrant flavor from the tomato paste and wine, plus the thyme and parsley gave it a nice kick of freshness. Also garlic because happiness despite the lack of carbs. Even if I don't do a flatbread again (which, of course, I will, because I have two more pieces), I'm going to be making more tomato sauce like this, hopefully with homemade tomato puree/paste someday.
Comments
Post a Comment