I remember being part of a group preparing a themed supper one night, and the pita delivered by our supplier was woefully lacking in pockets. My part of the preparation was to carefully split every one of the defective pita with a knife, while trying not to split my hand in the process. (My co-worker and I decided pita was really an acronym . . P.I.T.A. . . . Need I say more?)
But even so, I love the stuff. So, naturally, I decided I should learn to make it. I searched the Internet and found a delightfully simple recipe at About.com. And--oh, boy--my family was hooked. (That night, I tried to serve spoon tacos for dinner, which is basically taco fillings on broken tortilla chips. I had a revolt on my hands and ended up serving taco-filled pitas.)
Since then, I've made pita several times, and we've enjoyed them with a variety of fillings. Our standard, of course, is homemade hummus, flaked canned chicken, and salad fixings or Tabouli, but we'll also fill them with whatever we've got waiting around at the moment. (Taco meat is still a good one!) We've also discovered the absolutely sinful delight of spreading Nutella inside a pita . . . yum . . . Bet you didn't know pita could be a dessert.
The one thing I did differently than the recipe specified was to use a baking stone instead of a preheated cookie sheet on which to bake the pita. A baking stone maintains a more consistent heat, which I hope provides a result closer to baking in a brick oven, especially as there is a lot of opening and closing the oven in this recipe.
The ingredients are very simple: yeast, flour, salt, sugar, and water. (No oil, which makes it an ideal recipe for a baking stone, which can get stained when oil does touch it. When you see mine, you'll see there has been a certain amount of staining, mostly from pizzas.) It can be made with part whole wheat flour, as well, but this time, I just used white.
As usual when I'm making yeast breads, I mix the recipe in my stand mixer, so I alter the directions slightly.
1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (not too hot . . . remember, yeast likes it around 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Dissolve the yeast in the 1 1/2 cups warm water in the stand mixer bowl and add the sugar. Stir until it is dissolved and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. Add the salt and stir in the flour until the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic. More thorough directions on mixing up a yeast dough in a stand mixer can be found here: Mixing a Yeast Bread In a Stand Mixer.
When the mixing process is complete, cover and allow to rise in a bowl greased with vegetable oil. Turn the dough upside down in the bowl so there is a coating of oil on the top of the dough, to prevent it drying out as it rises. (OK, so there is a small amount of oil in the process, but not much.)
After an hour or so of rising in a reasonably warm location, the dough will be about doubled in size, and it will be time to prepare the work surface. In this recipe, I actually end up using both my wooden boards--one to hold the portioned dough, and one on which to roll out the pita.
Preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a baking stone, position it toward the bottom of the oven. If no baking stone is available, position the oven rack at the very bottom of the oven and place a baking sheet on it during the preheating process.
Roll the dough out in a kind of rope (mine is a very thick rope) and pinch or cut off 10-12 small pieces. (I usually go for 12, and I cut it with a sharp knife.) Form the pieces into balls, similar to making rolls, and place them on a floured surface. Cover them and allow them to sit for 10 minutes. Because there is ample opportunity for the balls to dry out in the next part of the process, I keep them covered in plastic wrap.
Roll out each ball into a 5-6-inch circle with a lightly-floured rolling pin. The circles should be about a quarter inch thick.
Place the pita on the preheated baking stone or baking sheet. (I can actually fit four at a time, but this go-round, I only put on three.)
Bake the pita for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up, then flip and bake for another 2 minutes.
Doesn't that look wonderful?!!
A certain amount of flour will accumulate on the baking stone, so when it starts to look too toasty, brush it gently off with a paper towel on to something else . . . another paper towel, a plate, etc. (What matters is not to brush it into the oven . . . gets messy and starts to really smell toasty.)
Remove the pita from the oven with a turner/spatula and press lightly down on each puffed pita with that spatula. Place in a plastic zipper bag.
I confess I blinked a lot when I first read to place the pita in a plastic bag. But I've since found it actually works. If the pita is left out to cool, the outside may get sort of crunchy, which makes it less pliable. If it is placed in an open plastic bag, the heat and steam coming off the bread helps to soften it. Keep it partly open, however, until it really is cool, or the bread will get soggy (which is what I would have expected and why all the blinking . . .)
Love those pockets! With my family, I double the recipe every time I make it, or there won't be any left the next day. (Especially if I have Nutella . . .)
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