Caesar Grilled Chicken Sandwich on Soft Wrap Bread
Here's our rendition of a favorite wrap sandwich. Substitute your own special filling for our suggested Caesar chicken, if you like. This is a good time to let your imagination run wild!
Let's start with the sandwich basic: bread. There's sandwich bread — a rectangular loaf, baked in a pan and sliced — and then there's "new age" sandwich bread, any of a variety of tortillas, wraps or flatbreads designed to enfold, roll around, or cradle their fillings. We've become really enamored of these wraps; they're easy to make, quick to bake, and sturdy enough to take wherever your meal ends up — indoors, outdoors, or in the car.
We use a rather unusual method to make this bread: boiling water is added to the flour, "cooking" the starch and making the resultant dough soft and easy to roll out. In addition, pre-cooking the starch this way eliminates any possibility of a "starchy" taste in the final bread; all in all, we find these wrap-like rounds better tasting than conventional flour tortillas or other wraps. Texture-wise, they're more like a soft pita bread than a tortilla, so if you like the bread in your sandwich to be a substantial part of the whole, this is a good recipe for your files.
Read our blog about this sandwich, with additional photos, at Bakers' Banter.
Wrap bread
- 3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1 1/4 cups boiling water
- 1/4 cup potato flour OR 1/2 cup potato buds or flakes
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon instant yeast
Caesar dressing
- 1 to 4 large cloves garlic, to taste, peeled and minced
- 3 anchovy fillets, finely minced (optional)
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 1 cup grated Parmesan, Pecorino Romano, or aged Asiago cheese
- 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Grilled chicken-vegetable filling
- 1 pound boneless chicken breasts or thighs
- 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and quartered
- 1 large onion, peeled and sliced in 1/2" slices
- 1 medium zucchini, sliced crosswise into 1/4"-thick slices
- romaine lettuce
Directions
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1) To make the bread: Place 2 cups of the flour into a bowl or the bucket of a bread machine. Pour the boiling water over the flour, and stir till smooth. Cover the bowl or bucket and set the mixture aside for 30 minutes. |
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2) In a separate bowl, whisk together the potato flour (or flakes or buds) and the remaining 1 cup of flour with the salt, oil and yeast. |
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3) Add this to the cooled flour/water mixture, stir, then knead for several minutes (by hand, mixer or bread machine) to form a soft dough. Note: You can allow the dough to go through the entire kneading cycle(s) in the bread machine, but it's not necessary; about a 5-minute knead in the machine, once it gets up to full kneading speed, is fine. The dough should form a ball, but will remain somewhat sticky. Add additional flour only if necessary; if kneading by hand, keep your hands and work surface lightly oiled. |
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4) Let the dough rise, covered, for 1 hour. |
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5) Divide the dough into 8 pieces (each about the size of a handball, around 3 ounces), cover, and let rest for 15 to 30 minutes. |
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6) Roll each piece into a 7"- to 8"-circle, and dry-fry them (fry without oil) over medium heat for about 1 minute per side, until they're puffed and flecked with brown spots. Adjust the heat if they seem to be cooking either too quickly, or too slowly; cooking too quickly means they may be raw in the center, while too slowly will dry them out. |
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7) Transfer the cooked breads to a wire rack, stacking them to keep them soft. Serve immediately, or cool slightly before storing in a plastic bag. |
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8) To make the dressing: Stir together the minced garlic, lemon juice, mustard, minced anchovy, Worcestershire sauce and sour cream. Whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the Parmesan cheese and ground black pepper. You may do all of this in the food processor by processing together the garlic, lemon juice, anchovy or Worcestershire sauce, and sour cream. Drizzle the olive oil through the feed tube with the motor running, then gently pulse in the Parmesan and black pepper. Set the dressing aside. Refrigerate it if you're not going to use it within an hour or so. |
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9) To make the filling: Grill the chicken and vegetables over medium coals until done (or sauté them in a skillet). |
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10) Cool, then slice the chicken and cut the vegetables into bite-size pieces. |
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11) Place a lettuce leaf on each bread. Spoon some of the filling down the center, atop the lettuce. Top with dressing and serve immediately. |
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Yield: 8 sandwiches. |
Recipe summary
- Hands-on time:
- 60 mins. to 1 hrs 15 mins.
- Baking time:
- 18 mins. to 20 mins.
- Total time:
- 1 hrs 18 mins. to 1 hrs 35 mins.
- Yield:
- 8 sandwiches
- Recipe comments (9) »
Reviews
08/04/2009
I just wanted to add to my review that I did need to add about 1/4 c. more water in the first step to get a somewhat smooth dough that incorporated all of the flour. I made the dough in a bread machine using the dough cycle and even though it looked a bit like wallpaper glue mixed with flour in the first step after I had added the boiling water, by the time all the ingredients were incorporated and the dough was finished, it was perfectly smooth and soft. I also forgot to mention that the caesar dressing was incredible - we used it a few days later for homemade "caesar" pizza (dressing on the dough topped with slices of grilled chicken, bacon, mozzarella and croutons) as well as on a caesar salad and it was terrific.
08/04/2009
I've made this bread twice now - once with the Chicken Caesar and once with sliced grilled chicken sausage, peppers and onions - both were big hits with my kids and husband. I made my dough balls a bit smaller and was able to get 12 breads from each recipe that were about 8" in diameter. Can't see ever buying flatbread again!
08/03/2009
I love eating this way and was delighted to find this recipe. I hit a snag almost immediately when the boiling water was poured over the flour. I had to add almost another 1/4 cup. The Hotline was very helpful - the recipe makes it sound like the dough is going to be smooth (I had "batter" in my mind) but actually its okay that it is stiff and not too smooth. The rest of the kneading will sort this out. Everything came out well. The wraps were tender and delicious - I did them directly on the grill because my chicken was grilling and we were eating outside. But, because we like well seasoned food, I found i had to increase the anchovies in the dressing by 2 and tweak it a little. Altogether a keeper!
07/24/2009
O.K. This is my first complaint about any KAF recipe... but it looks more like an editing issue than a problem with the recipe itself. I print all my baking recipes out as "weight" version... habit I developed from making bread for too long. Although the system converts the ingredient list into weight, the directions remain in volume. As a result, it you don't do the mental conversion from 12.75 oz to 3 cups, you scorch too much of the flour with insufficient water in that first step - which should only be 8.5 oz not the full 12.75 (I'd bet that happened to the person before me too). Ah well, guess you can't be perfect every time!
I will pass along your experience to our web team, maybe they will be able to upgrade that function. Thanks for thei tip! Frank @ KAF.
07/22/2009
I followed the recipe without modification. I had trouble with the bread in the first stage. There was not enough water to get to a smooth consistency. I was able to recover the dough, but it was a challenge all the way through the process. The bread turned out ok and is soft with a nice potato flavor. My kids surely liked it. I used all the ingredients for the dressing. My wife said it was one of the best Caesar dressings she's had. I thought the mustard was strong, but it was nice on the sandwich with everything else. I'm not a dressing person, so I'll take my wife's word that it was good. The vegetables were fine, but the chicken needed some seasoning. Not sure if I'll do this recipe again. It was a couple of hours work for an average result.
07/21/2009
I confess that I was a bit skeptical about this recipe, but it turned out terrific. I had to use more water for the bread wraps. The dressing is also wonderful (I included the anchovies and added a bit more sour cream). I used grilled chicken thighs cooked in our charcoal grill. This recipe is a keeper.
07/21/2009
I love the idea of this bread but, like a previous reviewer, am also interested in whole-grain options. I'd like to make this 100% whole grain, but using the same unique boiling water technique to try to preserve the texture. Am I best off with a lower-gluten or a higher-gluten flour blend? I'm thinking of a combination of whole spelt and white whole wheat flours; would this be suitable? Should I add some extra vital wheat gluten? >br/>I'd go with the spelt & white whole wheat blend. This should give you a nice whole grain wrap. I would save any addition of vital wheat gluten for a "round 2" experiment. Frank @ KAF.
07/19/2009
I made the bread exactly as you instructed, and it was fantastic! For the filling, I used chicken that I had already grilled and bottled dressing. My chicken was marinated in olive oil, lime juice, and garlic; which I think adds flavor to the chicken. I'll try the dressing when my bottled dressing runs out.
07/18/2009
Do you have a whole wheat version of this bread?
While there is no whole wheat version, you could start with incorporating some whole wheat (1 Cup at first - preferably white whole wheat). PJ also recommends 1 Cup boiling water plus 1/4 Cup orange juice for the liquid as the whole grain will absorb more. Irene at KAF
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