Now that I am done with school I have ample time to check things off of my “to make” list. I guess I should say lists, since there are several scattered about – in notebooks, on scraps of paper, on my bookmark bar. Pitas and english muffins are both on a list somewhere and have been ever since I found out that anyone can make them, and with very little effort. I decided to try pitas first since I had a craving for Mediterranean food for my first post-finals dinner. While they’re not as easy as mixing together a few ingredients and throwing them in a dutch oven to bake, they’re really not much more complicated than that. If you have a rolling pin and a baking stone (or a cast iron pan) you can make your own pita bread. And you should.
Pita Bread
Ingredients slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen, technique more or less from Joy of Cooking
3 cups plus scant 1/4 cup bread flour (454 grams)
2 tsp salt (13.2 grams)
2 tsp instant yeast (6.4 grams)
2 tbsp olive oil (27 grams)
1 1/4 cups room temperature water (295 grams)
Makes 8 pitas
Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, and mix on low with the dough hook until combined. You could also do this in a big bowl if you do not have a mixer and then knead the dough by hand.
Increase the speed to medium and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, tacky but not sticky. It will take maybe 5 minutes (10 by hand). Add extra flour or water if necessary. Scoop the dough out of the bowl, drizzle a little oil in the bowl to coat the bottom and sides, put the dough back in, and roll it around to coat it with oil.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise at room temperature until doubled in size, an hour to an hour an a half. With about 20 minutes to go preheat the oven to 450 with a baking stone (or cast iron skillet) placed in the middle or lower part of the oven.
Punch down the dough, and transfer it to a work surface. Divide it into eight pieces.
Roll each piece into a ball, and then cover them with a towel for another 20 minute rise. After the rise, roll each pita into an 8″ circle. If they resist the stretching, let them rest for a few minutes and then try it again. Immediately before baking, spray or brush the dough with a little water.
Carefully place as many rounds as you can on the baking stone, and bake for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. I was only able to bake one or two at a time because of poor planning when I placed them on the stone, but since the baking time is so short it wasn’t really an issue.
This was my first pita. I kind of panicked when putting it on the baking stone, and it folded and didn’t really puff up. It still tasted fine, but it didn’t have a nice stuff-able center like the puffed-up pita in the previous photo.
Eight (mostly) puffy pitas. My brother told me that they looked “pale and anemic,” which is the same way my grandma once described a couple of Thanksgiving pies. Yes, they look a little pale, but they tasted great. Next time I might swap out a little of the white flour for some wheat, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
Pita fillings, clockwise from top left: cabbage/carrot/dill slaw, tomatoes, cucumbers, cucumber raita, plain hummus, sun-dried tomato hummus, and feta.
A few lamb sausages.
The assembled dish.
