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.

the last time i lived close to wilderness, i was 11. i had a patch of wood in my backyard. a small, trickling creek ran through it. wild turkeys, the size of vacuum cleaners, would often visit.

life whisked me away to more and more urban areas until life found me in the berkeley hills this winter. here, i once again remembered what it was to notice.

how to greet the bickering crows. how to spectate the scurrying squirrels. how to pay attention, in wonder.

at least once a week, too, i would walk down the street to ascend a steep, winding dirt trail above claremont canyon. what started as a simple hike became a stumbling prayer of gratitude.

i learned to recognize the wild rosemary bushes near the top. i began to visit often. when the bushes looked healthy and weren’t flowering, i would pick a few sprigs, taking home a piece of the mountain with me.

when the world gifts something as magical as fresh, wild rosemary, what else is there to do but to share something with the world in return? how do we show gratitude for gifts such as these?

this recipe is my offering. perhaps you, too, will pause when your hands run over the sprigs of rosemary, and when you smell it filling up the crevices of your home.

this ritual has become my small, delicious meditation on all the magic that grows from the earth. i hope it becomes yours too.

notes

i wasn’t planning on re-visiting sourdough crackers. i’ve already written two recipes.

yet i knew there were a few issues i needed to resolve: dryness, thickness, toughness of bite, blandness. this updated recipe addresses all these shortcomings with a wetter, more flavorful dough.

these sourdough rosemary crackers roll out into thin sheets more easily, and bake up more crisply. i am generous with the rosemary. they are pretty, they are aromatic, and they are delicious.

ingredients matter.

• i strongly encourage you to use fresh rosemary over dried, and flaky salt to top.
• i haven’t tried adding other herbs or spices, but i encourage experimentation!
• one exception: if you plan on adding seeds, nuts, or other chunkier toppings, i’d recommend adding it at the end, while rolling out the dough rather than mixing it in. revisit my everything cracker recipe for more details on this process.

lastly but not leastly, i have a stiff starter at 80% hydration. please do adjust the amount of flour if yours differs.