This recipe is a variation of the Ottolengi Test Kitchen’s Middle Eastern Mac ‘N’ Cheese with Za’atar Pesto. I made it a few months back and it was SO FORKING AMAZING!!!!!!!! Incase you don’t know Yotam Ottolenghi is a famous chef, restauranteur, and multi award and James Beard winning cookbook author. Anyways that Middle Eastern Mac ‘N’ Cheese really was FORKING Amazing…. so

I thought these same flavors would also be great on a flatbread so I gave it a try.

I made my own bread and my own crisp onions but you can buy a flat bread already made. I always just wing bread because bread recipes are very rarely perfect to the brand flour you buy. They are all ground different so your results will differ. I basically made the bread the way I try to describe on how I make pizza dough. You can look that up on The Forking Truth if you like. The onions are easy. Either you can buy them already made crisp in a bag or slice onions yourself and coat them in either flour or cornstarch and fry in oil on medium heat till crisp. After that all I had to do was to make a cheese foundation that taste like what was on the pasta from the original recipe and then make the pesto. Serving size is difficult to judge. This recipe makes enough to dress two 14 inch breads that I cut into 16 small slices. I don’t know if you want one, two, three, or four slices to eat? I think the majority of people will eat two slices so I’ll guesstimate 8 smaller servings.

Ingredients for around 8 servings

2 – 14 inch flat breads

1/2 cup crisp onions

5 Tablespoons butter room temperature – topping

3 garlic cloves – ground to paste – topping

1/8 teaspoon turmeric – topping

1+ 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin – topping

5 Tablespoons cream cheese

1 + 1/3 cup mature cheddar cheese – shredded

6 + 1/3 oz feta cheese – crumbled

sea salt – to taste

black pepper – to taste

1 lemon – zest & supreme the segments and chop the supremes, squeeze what’s left not to waste the juice – pesto

3 Tablespoons za’atar – pesto

1 cup either parsley, cilantro, or celery leaves or a bit of each – rough chopped – pesto

1 garlic clove – ground to paste – pesto

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts – lightly crushed – pesto

6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – pesto

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – to oil pan

Directions

Depending on your bread depends on the temperature you need. If you are using a purchased bread you only need to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. If you are baking a pizza type dough then you would need a higher temperature on what your pan or stone can handle between 450 and 500 degrees F.

Make topping- In a medium bowl combine butter, garlic, turmeric, cumin, cream cheese, cheddar, and feta cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set to the side.

Make pesto – In a small bowl combine zest, lemon supremes, any lemon juice that you can squeeze from the skins you removed from the supremes, za’atar, cup of leaves (parsley, cilantro, and or celery), garlic, pine nuts, olive oil. You will want to blend this slightly. It is easiest if you have a stick blender. Or you can muddle it with a mortar and pestle.

Preheat your oven to at least 350 degrees F.

Place a bread on an oiled pan.

Spread 1/2 of topping on bread. (other 1/2 goes on 2nd bread)

This goes in oven till hot. (about 10 minutes)

Next – take out of oven and add up to 1/2 of pesto. (Some goes on 2nd bread)

Finish with crisp onions and slice and serve!

A Special THANKS!!!!!!!!! to Ottolenghi Test Kitchen so I could come up with what I got here!