This past weekend, John and I took another trip to the Russian food store around the corner. They had really interesting breads that I had never seen or heard of before. But, one of them, Matnakash was $1. So of course, I had to buy it. We got home and I started searching for Matnakash bread and found out it is a traditional Armenian bread! Cool! But as for what we could do with it, I found considerable less information.What I found is that it is mostly used to dunk into soups, etc. Obviously, I’d have to dream up something myself. Staring at it, I just thought it looked like a big flatbread. It was tender and squishy and while I ate a little bit of it plain (oops), I thought it would be a nice deep dish style pizza crust! We thought up summery flavors that I thought would taste good and started making it!

I love goat cheese, and if you don’t, you can easily substitute feta cheese instead. John doesn’t love it but the combination all together, he really did enjoy. We used the Roasted Red Pepper recipe from Wednesday and just lightly sauteed some onions. The onions would be great caramelized but, I was way too hungry to wait for that to happen. Sauteing them worked just as good!

Mediterranean Matnakash Pizza
Serves: 4
1 large onion, chopped
1 Matnakash bread (or flatbread)
6 ounces goat cheese
1 cup arugula
1 cup roasted red pepper, chopped
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Heat a large greased skillet over medium heat. When hot, add chopped onion and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook ten minutes until translucent and tender, stirring often to prevent burning. Meanwhile, spread goat cheese on top of Matnakash. Combine arugula, onions, and roasted peppers in a bowl. Drizzle balsamic vinegar over the mixture. Let sit about 5 minutes and then top the goat cheese with the mixture, making sure to add all of the balsamic vinegar as well. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (or the grill to medium-high heat). Cook about 10 minutes on a greased cookie sheet or pizza stone in the oven. On the grill, oil the grill before placing the bread on top, and cook about 10-12 minutes. Once it is heated through, remove and slice. Serve immediately, topping with extra arugula if desired.

The goal here is to cook it so it is heated through, but not so the bread gets crusty. After just ten minutes, the pizza was a nice warm pizza, but the bread was still soft; that really added to the deliciousness of this dish. Even if you just make this with a flat-type of bread, or regular pizza pie it is an incredible tasting dish! And, perfect for any Friday night!

Until the next time my oven is on…