Lagana or Focaccia style lagana

As I said yesterday, when I made koulouria, I had made double the recipe as with the remaining dough I wanted to make one of our favourite flatbreads: Lagana. Originally it was an unleavened bread but eventually a little yeast was added.

Αncient Greeks colonized Southern Italy and Sicily between 1800 to 500 b.C. and then in 146 b.C. the Romans conquered Greece. During these years the Romans were influenced by the Greek civilization, culture and among other things food.

Until today in some parts of Southern Italy they still speak a Greek ancient dialect and the word lagana is still used there, however, having the meaning of wide tagliatelle. Lasagna comes from this word. I wanted to mention this because most dictionaries such as the Merriam Webster stop at the Latin root and do not explore further the meaning of the words.

I know that now this is not the time for lagana, as traditionally this wonderful bread is only baked once a year, on the first day of Lent of the Orthodox Easter, and I cannot understand why, as everybody is crazy about this bread.

So, the remaining dough I divided it into two equal parts and shaped the first one in an oblonged oval shape. I covered it with a clean towel and left it to rise again. When it rose, I brushed it with olive oil, and dipped it in the sesame seeds and I pressed it with my fingers to give it its shape.

Meantime, until it rose I decided to try something something similar to focaccia.

I remembered seing some recipes of focaccia and one was with sun dried tomatoes and green olives. The last time I went to the supermarket I had bought some sun dried tomatoes for another recipe and still had some left. I did not have green olives but I still have lots of Kalamata olives, which were perfect when I made the Eliopsomo (Olive bread) or when I made the Olives and carrot bread stick rolls.

I am submitting this recipe as well to Susan, of Wild Yeast, who is hosting the event Yeastspotting.

Ingredients:

• Dough (see recipe here)
• 10 sun dried tomatoes
• 15 Kalamata olives, pitted
• 1/2 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp of crashed rosemary
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• a pinch of coarse sea salt

Directions

Add the olives and tomatoes to the dough, as well as the garlic powder, the crashed rosemary, salt, oregano and basil and need for a few minutes.

I cut the sundried tomatoes into small pieces and together with the pitted olives I added the garlic powder and herbs and knead for five minutes.

Then with wet hands or with a brush, wet the surface of the dough and then put it in the sesame seeds. Repeat on the other side as well.

Place in a tin (I used a non stick 30 X 25 cm tin) and stretched the dough to fill in the tin. Until the other one was baked, I covered this one with the towel in order to rise.

Both were baked in a preheated oven at 180 degrees and baked until they were crispy and golden brown, about 1 hour.

Both are lovely when eaten hot but as I baked quite a lot we ate the last piece today (five days later) and every day it was even better. It dried and was crispy (not hard) like a rask with all those beautiful flavours in it.

Tags: Breads, Flatbreads, Greek, Lagana, lenten, Traditional