Grill bread is sort of like a pretzel and sort of like bread and a lot like crack. I dare you to take just one bite. One friend of mine – who particularly relishes its salty pretzel-like quality – once begged me not to make it. She was on a reducing plan and found the siren call of the grill bread too much to resist. On her, I take pity. For the rest of you: Enjoy.
Grill Bread
Make the dough a day ahead of time, stretch it out ahead of time and cover or simply stretch it right before you plop it on the grill.
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup milk
6 1/2 – 7 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Olive oil for brushing
Coarse salt for sprinkling (don’t kid yourself, this is *not* optional)
Black onion seeds (nigelia) for sprinkling, optional
Dissolve yeast in 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water. Stir in 1 cup lukewarm milk.
Stir in flour and salt until a dough forms (this is great to do in a standing mixer with a dough hook, if you have one). If doing this by hand, you may need to turn the dough out onto a counter and knead it to work in all the flour.
Lightly oil a large bowl and put the dough in it. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let sit to let dough rise until doubled in bulk, 8 hours or overnight.
Punch down the dough and let it sit another hour.
Meanwhile, brush your cooking grate with vegetable oil. Heat your grill to medium to medium-hot. You should be able to hold your hand about an inch over the cooking grate for two minutes second or so before it just feels way too hot. Don’t worry too much about this, however. Grill bread isn’t fussy.
Divide the dough into ten pieces. Work with one piece at a time and stretch it into a disk of some sort – oblong is cool, round is fine, crazy-shaped is always popular. Lay whatever shaped dough disk you have on the hot grill. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.
Once all dough is on the grill, brush each disk with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black onion seeds, if you’re using them. Cook until grill marks form and the disks release easily from the grill. I’m not going to give you a time frame because I know nothing about your grill or fire-making skills or how windy and cooled off it is on your balcony where the grill is. This could take 5 minutes or 15 – but that is not a time frame to follow! Just hang with the bread a bit, when it releases easily and has grill marks, flip it. Flip each grill bread and brush the cooked side with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
Cook until grill marks form on the second side and grill breads are cooked through. Serve hot or at least warm.
Janelle Beitz | 11-Jun-10 at 10:19 am | Permalink
This looks SO good, Molly!
Molly Watson | 11-Jun-10 at 10:40 am | Permalink
Thanks Janelle!
TravisJ | 11-Jun-10 at 11:34 am | Permalink
So simple but so awesome. I’m adding you to my RSS for sure. Thanks for sharing.
Molly Watson | 11-Jun-10 at 5:35 pm | Permalink
That is my cooking aim! You’ve just summed it up for me perfectly: Simple and awesome. I’m going to tattoo that on my hand. Or maybe just write it on a Post-It note. Thanks!
Chris | 11-Jun-10 at 8:54 pm | Permalink
The bread looks great! I’ve experimented with grilled pizza before, and it’s awesome! Just one thing, though–when describing how hot the grill should be, do you mean two MINUTES of holding a hand an inch away from the grill?? Just making sure it’s not a typo or anything.
Molly Watson | 11-Jun-10 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
No! You’re right! Two SECONDS! Thanks for the catch!!!!
Kristen Kancler | 12-Jun-10 at 9:13 am | Permalink
Good god this looks amazing! Do you think it would work well with whole wheat flour?
Also, I laughed OUT LOUD at your first sentence. You continually hit my funny bone
Linda Urban | 15-Jun-10 at 3:37 pm | Permalink
Oh dear dog. I just made this for our family “Read at the Table Night” and it was a HUGE success — though I’m not sure the children ate anything but this bread. YUM! Thanks for posting the recipe.
Denise | Chez Danisse | 15-Jun-10 at 5:23 pm | Permalink
This looks excellent! I’ve never used black onion seeds, but would like to try.
The Local Cook | 16-Jun-10 at 5:07 am | Permalink
Oooh, I’ve been wanting to make bread on the grill! Thanks for posting!
Eva | 17-Jun-10 at 11:16 pm | Permalink
Hi, thanks for sharing, this looks perfectly tasty, and I am making it right now.
Just one question: you dissolve the yeast in two cups water and use another cup of milk? This makes three cups of liquid on six cups of flour, or am I getting something completely wrong? (I´m not used to the whole cup-measuring-thing …) Thanks for helping me!
Molly Watson | 18-Jun-10 at 5:34 am | Permalink
I did forget to warn people/say that I have found there is little need to make anything else if you’re making grill bread….
Molly Watson | 18-Jun-10 at 5:36 am | Permalink
The cups thing is a little whacky if you’re not used to it, to be sure. But yes, there are three cups of liquid to the six cups of flour here. It is a fairly wet dough – more like pizza dough than a loaf of bread.
Grill-report | 29-Jun-10 at 5:26 am | Permalink
the grill bread look very good thanks for the posting
Molly Watson | 29-Jun-10 at 5:43 am | Permalink
The pleasure, it was all mine, I assure you.
Sage & Style | 29-Jun-10 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
Mmmm. I have been making pizzas on the grill but this is even better. Perfect when your kitchen is filled with dinner party recipes … just make some space on the grill and voila! … fresh bread.
Molly Watson | 29-Jun-10 at 1:50 pm | Permalink
Exactly! It’s like doing the Tday turkey on the grill: delicious *and* saves oven space!
Gini Lawson | 04-Aug-10 at 7:42 am | Permalink
Hi Molly – I’ve made this twice now (I know – this is LONG after you posted this – forgive my delay in commenting) and the first time I added quite a bit of flour to the dough – just enough (about 2 cups) to allow me to handle it. It was really good, but I vowed to follow your recipe exactly the next time. So, last night I did – and it was a disaster! WAY too wet – (but I kept thinking – hmmmm – no, I vowed to follow the recipe exactly and that is what I will do.) The bread was so wet it couldn’t hold its shape.
Am I doing something wrong? Has anyone else needed to add flour? I’d love to know, since it is SO good (the first time I made it we couldn’t stop eating it).
Help! (LOVE your blog, BTW!)
Gini
Molly Watson | 04-Aug-10 at 8:18 am | Permalink
Oh no! I looked this over and it is how I make it (and have made it many many times). It is a very wet dough – I knead mine in a standing mixer with a dough hook. If I didn’t knead it that way I think I would need to add substantially more flour. I also use a fair amount of flour when I shape each piece. Sounds like you have a solution, though – just add more flour. Different flours, different humidity levels, different expectations for how dough should feel – these all make bread baking as much art as science. Go ahead and add enough flour so you can work with the dough! While I love the idea of people following my recipes to a T, I love even more the idea of people eating delicious food they made themselves. If they were inspired by something from me, all the better!
Gini Lawson | 04-Aug-10 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
Molly – thanks! I do mine in a stand mixer as well. I am making it again this weekend for our “Girls at the Beach” weekend, so I’ll add more flour and let you know how it goes. I was also thinking of trying a bit of whole wheat flour, and perhaps some corn flour as well. We’ll see! Thanks again for your answer.
peggy | 08-Aug-10 at 11:16 am | Permalink
The dough is resting, but it looks more like dense cake batter. Have I made a fatal error?
I followed the directions to the letter…..
peggy | 08-Aug-10 at 11:19 am | Permalink
strike that. I’ll try adding more flour too!
Molly Watson | 09-Aug-10 at 4:10 am | Permalink
Okay – now I have to make this again myself and check all the amounts. I’ve been making this for years – which is exactly how errors get introduced
. I hope it turned out for you Peggy!
apricot-honey chicken tagine « fried sig | 13-Apr-11 at 9:18 pm | Permalink
[...] with toasted pistachios and kalamata olives. serve with a grain (yellow rice? quinoa? fresh grill-bread brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt? [...]
Cara | 04-Jun-11 at 7:49 am | Permalink
This bread has become a staple at our weekly barbeques. If I don’t make any I get a lot of flak! I sometimes use half WW flour and half AP, and it turns out quite nicely. I also infuse my olive oil with some fresh garlic – heavenly!
Sour dough Bread Recipe | 24-Oct-11 at 10:43 pm | Permalink
Bar B.Q bread, this will really have a great taste. I am going to add some butter on it and will try this with some thing.