Hey guys!
Pita bread ... I've seen at least 20 different versions just across the middle east, and I am not talking about the naan, chapati, armenian lavash and another quadrizillion versions of a flatbread.... However, growing up in Israel, pita in my view is only that thick flatbread with pocket, which I can stuff with anything I like, be it falafel, gyros or shakshouka (now if you don't know what that is - will post a recipe quite soon!)...
So here is that recipe, that works every time... The yield is about 10 pitas, and trust me, it looks way more complicated than it really is!
- 5 cups (625 g) strong flour (bakers one, with high gluten)
- 1.5 cups (360 g) water
- 4 tsp (12 g) active dry yeast
- 2 tsp (10 g) sugar / honey (honey's better)
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp (8 g) salt
My strong suggestion is to use a stand mixer, unless you're after a good gym - the dough is going to be really tough, and that's cool... Give this dough a good kneading - 7-8 minutes to the very least. However, make sure not to overknead - if the gluten is destroyed, that's it!
Shape the dough in a ball, put it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and proof until doubled in size, about 1 hour or a bit more. Then turn it over onto the surface, knock back (degas) and divide into 10-12 balls. Dough yield is 2.5 lb (~1 kg), so 10 will give you rather large pita, I usually go for 12 pieces... Let the dough balls rest on the workbench, covered with kitchen towel, for about 15-20 minutes, sort of "calm down".
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to the absolute maximum heat it can go to and place an oven tray in the middle of the oven, upside down (trust me, gonna be easier). Let it preheat so when you will start baking it's really hot.
Note: If you have a pizza stone - use it, but then you'll need to start preheating the oven well ahead of the time. The rest is the same.
Now, when the oven is nice and hot, take each ball, roll it into a disk of about 1/4" (bit less than 1 cm) thickness and set aside... I usually work in batches of 4, that's what my oven tray can take in one go. So, you open the oven, throw those dough disks right on that tray, close the door and watch them puffing. That will take about 2-3 minutes maximum, and your pitas will become nice air filled balloons. That's the time to pull them out. Then you do another round of 4 disks and so on until all the pitas are baked.
And now to the top secret part... The way to keep pitas nice , soft and fluffy is to let them cool in between two kitchen towels. This will not let them dry out... So get a big tray lined with one kitchen towel, and when baking, once you take the pita out of the oven - off it goes onto that tray and immediately under the cover of another towel. That's how you let them cool completely, and then you can pack and freeze them. Reheated in microwave they come back to the original state.
Ah and sure you can enjoy them warm.
Pita bread ... I've seen at least 20 different versions just across the middle east, and I am not talking about the naan, chapati, armenian lavash and another quadrizillion versions of a flatbread.... However, growing up in Israel, pita in my view is only that thick flatbread with pocket, which I can stuff with anything I like, be it falafel, gyros or shakshouka (now if you don't know what that is - will post a recipe quite soon!)...
So here is that recipe, that works every time... The yield is about 10 pitas, and trust me, it looks way more complicated than it really is!
- 5 cups (625 g) strong flour (bakers one, with high gluten)
- 1.5 cups (360 g) water
- 4 tsp (12 g) active dry yeast
- 2 tsp (10 g) sugar / honey (honey's better)
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp (8 g) salt
My strong suggestion is to use a stand mixer, unless you're after a good gym - the dough is going to be really tough, and that's cool... Give this dough a good kneading - 7-8 minutes to the very least. However, make sure not to overknead - if the gluten is destroyed, that's it!
Shape the dough in a ball, put it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and proof until doubled in size, about 1 hour or a bit more. Then turn it over onto the surface, knock back (degas) and divide into 10-12 balls. Dough yield is 2.5 lb (~1 kg), so 10 will give you rather large pita, I usually go for 12 pieces... Let the dough balls rest on the workbench, covered with kitchen towel, for about 15-20 minutes, sort of "calm down".
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to the absolute maximum heat it can go to and place an oven tray in the middle of the oven, upside down (trust me, gonna be easier). Let it preheat so when you will start baking it's really hot.
Note: If you have a pizza stone - use it, but then you'll need to start preheating the oven well ahead of the time. The rest is the same.
Now, when the oven is nice and hot, take each ball, roll it into a disk of about 1/4" (bit less than 1 cm) thickness and set aside... I usually work in batches of 4, that's what my oven tray can take in one go. So, you open the oven, throw those dough disks right on that tray, close the door and watch them puffing. That will take about 2-3 minutes maximum, and your pitas will become nice air filled balloons. That's the time to pull them out. Then you do another round of 4 disks and so on until all the pitas are baked.
And now to the top secret part... The way to keep pitas nice , soft and fluffy is to let them cool in between two kitchen towels. This will not let them dry out... So get a big tray lined with one kitchen towel, and when baking, once you take the pita out of the oven - off it goes onto that tray and immediately under the cover of another towel. That's how you let them cool completely, and then you can pack and freeze them. Reheated in microwave they come back to the original state.
Ah and sure you can enjoy them warm.
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