For the last couple of weeks, I found myself back in Beijing with the family. This always means food, food, food–lots of it and super cheap!
We always have the list of places we go back to time and again, but this trip we discovered something new at our local wet market.
Chive flowers!
And maybe a kick butt chive flower flatbread for lunch… more on that later!
These babies are in season here in China right now, and if you plant Chinese chives (or regular chives) in the spring, you’ll have them all spring and summer. Just pick the flowers before they’ve gone to seed (and make this easy flatbread recipe!), so that they don’t spread all over the garden.
My dad didn’t know what the heck you did with them but figured if an old lady was selling these chinese chive flowers in gigantic mounds, they must be pretty alright. So we purchased a ridiculously excessive amount, and brought ’em back to the homestead.
My dad’s initial suggestion was a salad. I’m not the type that’s keen to munch on petals (really, who is at first blush?), but I thought ok, I guess we can sprinkle some on a bit of spring mix for instant salad jazzification…
Except when I tried the raw flowers, they were STRONG. Like concentrated onion extract. Plus grass. All packed into a nibble of one tiny flower. Like I said — strong.
But then, we had an idea. Everything’s better baked or fried right?
Right.
Always.
So the first thing we made was a frizzled chive flower flatbread–aka an onion flatbread with scallions, red onions, and chive flowers (and then we made chive flower tempura, which was AMAZING). The key to our chive flower flatbread recipe is soaking the flowers and scallions in olive oil so that in the hot oven, they get frizzled and fried-like.
The flavor of the chive flowers mellows out and sweetens, but still gives you an intense caramelized onion flavor. The red onions get just perfectly crisp nestled in all the peripheral olive oil goodness, and the scallions offer the perfect complementary zingy-ness to the party, as only scallions can do.
If you’ve got the flowers, this chive flower flatbread recipe is really easy (especially if you’ve already mastered our super simple foolproof pizza dough) and REALLY delicious. Serve it as an appetizer with drinks to impress your foodie friends, as a (hearty) afternoon snack, or alongside a salad for a delightful lunch or dinner.
Chive Flower Flatbread: Recipe Instructions
Before we jump into steps, a note on customization. The amount of the toppings you need will vary depending on how many flatbreads you’re making. The ingredients listed are if you want to make all of your pizza dough into frizzled flower flatbreads.
This flatbread recipe makes up to 4 larger flatbread pizzas, or 5-7 smaller flatbread pizzas, but it all depends on whether you like thick or thin crusts. As for me, I wholeheartedly endorse the thin crust. Just make sure you liberally flour your board, or you can make the chive flower flatbread pizza directly on your pan (though your crust will take longer to crisp up on the bottom).
Pizza, and by extension, flatbread, is a deeply personal food. You do you.
Okay. Let’s crack on!
Make your flatbread dough using my fool-proof pizza dough recipe. While you’re waiting for that to rise, prep the red onion, chive flowers, and scallions.
Put the flowers and scallions into separate bowls and pour enough olive oil in to coat. For the flowers, add several turns of your pepper grinder—about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon, depending on your preference.
Once the flatbread dough is done rising, preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Make sure your pizza stone or cookie sheet is in the oven!
Punch down your dough like ya mean it and tear off a hunk. Roll it out to your preferred thickness–shape really doesn’t matter here, square, circle, oval, rectangle, anything goes. And, again, flour the board liberally as you’ll want the dough to slide easily off your board and onto your hot pan/stone.
Brush a little olive oil onto the dough. No need to measure. Eyeballs, people, eyeballs.
Spread the red onions evenly, then the scallions, then the chive flowers. You want big bunches of flower to really deliver that concentrated flavor.
Top with a leetle more olive oil (you can use what’s leftover from your scallion & flower bowls), a bit more cracked pepper, and just a touch of coarse salt.
Bake for 10-13 minutes.
When it’s hot out of the oven, as with all crispy noms, an extra sprinkling of coarse salt really does the trick.
Cut into pieces, and get it on the table immediately! Or just do what we do: group huddle around the cutting board like hungry neanderthals.
Hope you enjoy this unique chive flower flatbread recipe folks!
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Recipe
Chinese Chive Flower Flatbread
Ingredients
- 1 recipe fool-proof pizza dough
- 1 large red onion (thinly sliced)
- 2 cups chive flowers (washed and trimmed of any debris)
- 1 bunch scallions (cut into 2-inch long pieces if you have thin, tender ones, or thinly sliced on the diagonal if you have thicker ones)
- extra virgin olive oil
- freshly ground black pepper and salt
Instructions
- Once the dough is done rising, preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Make sure your pizza stone or cookie sheet is in the oven!
- Punch down your dough like ya mean it and tear off a hunk. Roll it out to your preferred thickness–shape really doesn’t matter here, square, circle, oval, rectangle, anything goes. And, again, flour the board liberally as you’ll want the dough to slide easily off your board and onto your hot pan/stone.
- Brush a little olive oil onto the dough. No need to measure. Eyeballs, people, eyeballs.
- Spread the red onions evenly, then the scallions, then the chive flowers. You want big bunches of flower to really deliver that concentrated flavor. Top with a leetle more olive oil (you can use what’s leftover from your scallion & flower bowls), a bit more cracked pepper, and just a touch of coarse salt. Bake for 10-13 minutes.
- When it’s hot out of the oven, as with all crispy noms, an extra sprinkling of coarse salt really does the trick. Cut into pieces, and get it on the table immediately! Or just do what we do: group huddle around the cutting board like hungry neanderthals.
