Olive Bread
Ingredients:
- Hard flour (4 cups)
- Fresh milk (1 cup)
- Sourdough starter (½ cup) or powdered yeast (1 tbsp)
- Extra virgin olive oil from Messinia (½ cup)
- Black olives from Trikorfo (1 ½ cups)
- Ground mahlab seeds (1 tbsp)
- Ground Chios mastiha (2 pieces)
- Ground anise (¼ tsp)
- Fine salt (¼ tsp)
- Lukewarm water (1 ½ cups)
- Finely chopped cured meat (optional) (½ cup)
Instructions:
In a mixing bowl, add the sourdough starter or yeast and dilute it with a bit of water. Add half a cup of flour and stir until the mixture thickens. Cover and let it rise for half an hour. In another mixing bowl, place the flour and make a well in the center. Add the risen dough and the remaining ingredients, except for the olives and the cured meat. If the olives are salty and you also add cured meat, omit the salt. Knead the dough and leave it covered in a warm place to rise. Meanwhile, pit the olives and cut them into pieces. Once the dough has risen, divide it into two pieces and roll them out with a rolling pin into rectangular or square sheets, about 3 mm thick. Sprinkle with the olives and roll them up. Drizzle oil on a rectangular cake pan and place the rolls in it, letting them rise for another hour. Then, brush the bread with olive oil and poke it ten times with a skewer to ensure even baking. Bake in a preheated oven with a fan at 200°C for 10 minutes, then at 180°C for 40 minutes.
Source: Olive Bread
