Badische Dinnele

Badische Dinnele belongs to the southwest, especially Baden and the Kaiserstuhl wine country, where it sits well on a weeknight table and even better outside with a glass of local white wine. It is the thicker cousin of Flammkuchen, not a copy of it. Across the Rhine in Alsace and up through the Palatinate they argue for a thin, crackling Flammkuchen; in Baden and Swabia the Dinnele, or Dinnete, keeps a small bread chew and a stronger rim. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders, and here the argument happens within sight of the vineyards.

The technique that decides it is heat. The dough is yeast dough, but it must be rolled thin enough to bake through before the sour cream wets it, and the oven must be very hot so the base sets fast while the onions soften and the Speck gives up its fat. Bake it gently and you get pale bread under dairy. Bake it hard and the edge blisters, the bottom firms, and the topping stays creamy instead of soaking down.

Use Schmand or a thick sour cream, not a loose sauce from a tub that runs like milk. Nicht aus dem Glas. Slice the onions thin, because thick onion stays raw while the dough is already done, and cut the Speck small so its fat seasons the cream instead of sitting in rubbery strips. That is the whole dish: flour, dairy, onion, cured pork, and enough heat. Schön ist, was schmeckt.