Healthy Wraps
I bet many of you asked yourselfs how to make a healthy sandwich or how to make a “low calories” sandwich ?… I had also this question in my mind and I think I found a good answer: WRAPS :). But why wraps ?
They contain less dough than traditional sandwiches, you can add more filling and some ingredients can be added easier in a wrap than in a traditional sandwich due to the their package principle. So you can have a balanced meal in a wrap.
But what exactly is a wrap ?
According to Wikipedia definition “A wrap is a food dish made with a soft flatbread rolled around a filling.” You can easy find various types of flatbreads ready to buy but also it isn’t hard at all to do them yourself at home. All you need is flour, water, salt ( and olive oil if you like ). You can make the dough similar to pizza dough but without yeast.
Ingredients I used for the dough :
500 grams of bio wheat flower type 650
330 ml water
1 tsp (tea spoon) of salt
20 - 30 ml extra virgin olive oil
That’s all with the ingredients :).
Making the wraps
Mix the ingredients with a spoon in a large bowl until they bend together, then start kneading the dough. If the dough is too sticky sprinkle it with flower. Also you can sprinkle the kneading table with flower to prevent the dough to stick on it. If you use a machine 3 to 4 minutes of mixing and kneading should be enough and if you use your hands you should get it done in around 8 minutes.
Important: Let the dough rest and relax for 30 minutes.
After the resting time you can begin. Shape the dough in a bar shape then cut it into 50-70 grams pieces and make ball shaped pieces. From each piece, by stretching, you should obtain a cca. 24 cm flatbread which you can cook in a 24 cm or larger nonstick thick frypan. After the frypan is heated you can start to cook the flatbreads. An estimative time is 1 minute for each side but the time varies with the frypan temperature and how brown you like the spots on the flatbreads. Anyway be careful not to burn the flatbreads (this is easy to achieve if you don’t keep an eye to the frypan:)).
Important: While cooking the flatbreads, when each of them is done place it on a plate under a kitchen towel. You can stack the flatbreads one on top of each other, but it is very important to keep the plate covered with the towel during the whole cooking process. This helps the flatbreads to keep their humidity and not to dry. If they dry too much they’ll loose elasticity and you won’t be able to fold them, so take this as a very important step. After you finish the cooking process, let the flatbreads covered with the towel for around 15 minutes or so, and this is it - you can start using them. You can keep them in the refrigerator in a plastic bag (you can use a sealed casserole). I kept them this way in the refrigerator for about 5 days and they looked and smelled very good.
The filling
There are literally endless possibilities here :)
I tried the following variations till now:
Organic smoked salmon, organic mustard, butter, pickled cucumbers, green pepper, a lemon squeeze
Beef Steak, pickled cucumbers, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a few lettuce leaves
Tuna chunks, organic mustard, avocado, pickled cucumbers, red pepper, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a lemon squeeze
Prosciutto crudo, parmigiano, lettuce, dried tomatoes in olive oil
Omelet filling
Organic homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil, parmigiano, a drizzle of olive oil - I made this wraps quesadilla style, folded in half and grilled in a cast iron grill
You should try it.
It is a simple dish that leaves room for your creativity.
Enjoy !
