cheddar dill sourdough rolls

i’ve always considered dill to be a second tier herb.

my mother cooked with a multitude of herbs, often, even growing chives and green onions in our backyard.

during peak harvest times, my mother would cook nothing but chives for weeks at a time — chive dumplings, chive bao zi, chive pockets. she fed it all to my brother and i until we became bloated from the fiber.

dill just never had a place in my pantry. never harmonized with the warming notes of our rotation of ginger, star anise, and chilis, never made it into our cart during our biweekly trips to shanghai supermarket.

in the past few months, however, i’ve been flirting a lot with dill. a dill-less salad now feels naked, like it’s missing an ingredient as crucial as the lettuce itself. i’ll never leave another PLS ungarnished.

above all, i’ve become hooked on the combination of cheese and dill after trying a roll from la farine.

with the feedback of over seven taste testers, i’ve developed a delicate, puffy, pizza-crust like roll that similarly centers cheddar and dill.

this roll has a crisp and thin crust, encrusted with thinly shredded cheddar and speckled with fresh dill. bready walls surround a small divet where the cheddar pools and bubbles. when you bite in, it’s like eating a sauceless, herby micro pizza.

no matter where you are in your relationship with dill, these rolls will make you fall in love all over again. bread and cheese tend to have that kind of effect.

notes

the secret to the perfect texture and bite is using olive oil instead of flour while shaping! it is of utmost importance that you use as little flour as possible during this step!

i encourage swapping the dill for chives or scallions for a different flavor profile. in fact, i’ve tested this with scallions and the result is just as wonderful (see the three rolls in the left corner of the cover photo).

though i haven’t tried it, gruyere could also be a nice cheese accompaniment to the dill.

if your cheddar is on the saltier side, i would skip the extra salt. the cheddar i used was pretty mild.

as always, my starter is 80% hydration. please adjust the dough formula to match your starter. all timing and schedules are suggestions. i developed this recipe in springtime san francisco kitchen at about 74°F.

baker’s percentage & sample timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.