Home made Pita Bread
At home, we all love pita bread. Reheated in a toaster and then opened, while being careful because of the hot steam coming out, we fill them with lettuce, tomatoes, meat or chicken leftovers, some houmous, etc. It’s delicious.
We also enjoy them cut into triangles, perfect match for dips like this green pea houmous or this chick-pea dip with lemongrass and almonds.
Saturday, a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly had a craving for pita bread. The same morning I had been cooking roasted aubergine puree and tzatziki, (recipes on the way) which probably explains it.
As I hate going shopping just for one missing thing, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to make some on my own as I always wanted to do so.
As I was dusting my bread maker, which had to stayed in our basement during the building work done in our house, I thought that it’s exactly in this kind of situation that I love it as it allows me to make this kind of bread rapidly.
Pita bread is part of the huge family of flat breads and we don’t eat them only in Greece but in all the Mediterranean countries. They are leaven breads and have the particularity of being cooked in a pan, a little bit like Indians chapattis, Swedish breads or English muffins. You can also cook them in an oven but I must admit that the cooking pan method gives very good results.
They are really easy to make, especially if you’re using Anaik’s recipe from blog “Le confit c’est pas gras”, her recipe is perfect.
Pita Bread
Ingredients for 8 pita bread
500 g flour
11 g dried yeast
1 level tsp of salt
1 level tsp of brown sugar
30 cl lukewarm water
Put all the ingredients in your bread maker according to the manufacturer instructions and select program “dough” (it takes 45 minutes with mine).
Remove the dough from the bread maker, put it on a floured surface then cut it into 8 pieces. Shape them into balls then roll into circles of about 18 cm diameter.
Put them on a clean cloth and leave to stand for 20 minutes.
Heat a pan (pancakes pan in my case) on high heat and put a pita bread.
It’s going to rise in a quite impressive manner. After 1 minute 30 to 2 minutes, turn it (it must be golden) and continue to cook for 1 minute 30 to 2 minutes. Put on a plate, cover with a clean cloth and do the same with the following breads.
If you’re not going to cook the pita bread straight away, freeze the raw breads after you shape them into the circles, after wrapping them in foil or cling film. When you want to eat them, simply cook the pita bread in a pan, still frozen. I tested this method, and it gives very good results, by simply increasing the cooking time. Maybe they are a little bit drier but barely.
If you do not have a bread maker
Mix the yeast and sugar with half of the water and let stand for 15 minutes.
Put the salt in a large bowl; add the flour, then the yeast.
Mix everything starting with a wooden spoon while adding the rest of the water little by little.
Then, on a work surface, knead the dough with your hands, until it is smooth and elastic (it takes about 8 minutes).
Put the dough in a big bowl, cover with cling film or a damp cloth and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size (it takes about 1 hour 30).
Then proceed as in the previous recipe.
You will find another pita bread recipe on Sandra’s blog, which looks excellent to me.
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