Recipe by Jodie Smith

Kale Flatbread Chips with Avocado and Lime Dip

Name: Kale Flatbread Chips with Avocado and Lime Dip
Prep time: 10 min
Yield: 6

Serves6 people

Prep10 min

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VPC Artisan Flatbread Kale 130g

$4.95

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

These flatbreads come out of the pack already crisp, oven baked and thin enough to snap into shards, so the only cooking here is none. Make a coarse avocado and lime dip, break the flatbread over it, and put it down on the table. Ten minutes, serves six.

Ingredients

Serves 6 as a starter or a table snack. Prep 10 minutes. No cooking, or 4 minutes in a low oven if the flatbread pack has already been open a day.

The dip
3	avocados, ripe, about 450g of flesh
2	limes, the zest of one and the juice of both
1 small	garlic clove, grated on a microplane
2 tbsp	extra virgin olive oil
Half tsp	fine salt, plus more to taste
2 tbsp	coriander leaves, roughly chopped
1	long green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped, optional
1 to 2 tbsp	cold water, to loosen
To break over it
1 pack, 130g	VPC Artisan Flatbread Kale
1 pack, 130g	VPC Artisan Flatbread Beetroot, for a second colour
On the same board
1 jar, 185g	Kangaroo Island Kalamata Olives, drained
1 pack, 100g	VPC Artisan Pita, Rosemary, Parmesan and Garlic, if you want something richer alongside

Why there is nothing to bake

A lot of flatbread chip recipes start with a soft round of bread that you brush with oil, cut into wedges and bake until it snaps. These are not that. The kale flatbread is baked crisp before it reaches you, long and thin and about as thick as a cracker, and putting it back in a hot oven does nothing except colour the edges and dull the spice. Snap it and serve it.

The one time heat helps is an open pack that has been sitting out. Spread the shards on a tray, 4 minutes at 150 degrees, then leave them on the bench until they are completely cold. They crisp as they cool, not in the oven, so testing one while it is warm tells you nothing and usually sends people back for another five minutes they did not need.

The kale one carries a kale, tomato and chilli spice mix at 2.7 per cent through a base of wheat flour, water and wholegrain rye flour with linseed and rye bran, so it already tastes of something before the dip goes anywhere near it. That is why the dip here is deliberately plain.

Allergens, and the vegan question. The flatbread pack states that it contains gluten from wheat and rye, and that it may contain nuts, sesame seeds and milk. So this is not a gluten free plate, and we are not going to call the finished dish vegan on the back of a may contain milk line. The dip itself is plant based as written: avocado, lime, garlic, olive oil, salt and herbs, with nothing dairy in it. If you need certainty on the flatbread, read the current pack or call us on 1300 936 406.

Method

Halve the avocados, twist out the stones and scoop the flesh into a wide bowl.
Grate the zest of one lime straight over the avocado, then squeeze in the juice of both limes.
Grate the garlic in on a microplane. Chopped garlic stays in sharp little pieces in a cold dip; grated, it disappears into it.
Add the olive oil, the salt and the chilli if you are using it.
Mash with a fork to a coarse mash with lumps still in it. A blender turns avocado pale, pasty and slightly bitter, and you lose the only texture the dish has.
Taste it. It will almost certainly want more salt and more lime than you think, because the flatbread is going to carry a lot of it.
Loosen with cold water a tablespoon at a time until it drops off a spoon slowly rather than sitting in a mound.
Fold the coriander through at the end so it stays green.
Press cling film flat onto the surface of the dip, right to the edges, and refrigerate until you need it.
Tip the flatbread out and snap it into shards roughly the length of your palm. Pile them around the bowl rather than on top of it, or the bottom ones go soft.

How to stop it browning, honestly

Avocado browns because the cut flesh meets air. Lime slows that down and it does not stop it, and anyone who tells you their dip stays green all day is describing something with a lot more acid in it than this. Two things actually work. Press cling film onto the surface so there is no air gap at all, not stretched over the top of the bowl where a layer of air sits underneath. And make it no more than three hours ahead. If a brown skin does form, lift it off with a spoon and the dip beneath is perfectly good.

Common questions

How do I crisp flatbread without it burning?

With this flatbread you do not have to, because it arrives crisp. If a pack has been open and gone slightly soft, give it 4 minutes at 150 degrees and then let it cool completely on the tray. The mistake is treating it like bread and using a hot oven, which browns the thin edges long before the middle changes at all.

How do I stop avocado dip going brown?

Cling film pressed flat onto the surface, and make it on the day. Keeping the stone in the bowl is folklore: it only protects the small circle of dip it is touching.

Is this recipe vegan?

The dip is, as written. The flatbread pack carries a may contain milk statement, so we will not put a vegan label on the finished plate. If you are cooking for someone who avoids dairy strictly, check the pack in front of you. Our vegan Christmas food guide handles the rest of the table on the same basis.

What else goes around it

Two dips beat one, and the second should be a different colour and a different temperature of flavour. Our roasted garlic and cannellini bean dip is warm, nutty and pale, which is the opposite of a cold green avocado dip in every useful way, and the same flatbread works for both. Add the Kangaroo Island kalamata olives at $7.95, finished in red wine vinegar, and you have a board. The whole thing also travels, which is the argument in our Christmas picnic piece: carry the dip in the bowl you will serve it in, film still on, and the flatbread in its own pack.

VPC Artisan Flatbread Kale is $4.95 for 130g and the rest of the range, cheese and beetroot and the pita, sits on the Valley Produce Company page under crackers. The dip belongs with the rest of our vegan options and the flatbread with snacking and the festive entertaining essentials. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.