Homemade pita bread
Here is a bread that does not need a perfect kneading or develop that magical thing that is the membrane or an impeccable form like a baguette: pita bread. Don't you like those great bread pockets?
Well, homemade pita bread is the perfect bread for beginners as I recommend here, because the only intrinsic is that the magical balloon is formed in the oven. In addition, it serves pátó, from dipping in sauces to making fantastic sandwiches. And it's not that hard, I tell you.
I met pita bread there by the end of the 80s, in Holland and Germany, where there were a good number of emigrants from the Near East who sold rich kebabs with this bread. For me it was a novelty, because pita bread had not yet become popular in this kingdom. That we were little globalized yet.
I took it especially with a supposedly Greek specialty, pita gyros, stuffed with delicious meat that you will have seen make in those sliced towers that are roasted vertically while they turn.
PITA BREAD Ingredients:
350 g of baker's flour (I use the baker of El Amasadero, because it is a very friendly flour)
50 g spelled or whole spelled
250 g of water
10 g of sugar (or equivalent amount of your favorite sweetener)
5 g of salt
2 g of dry baker's yeast (6 g of fresh yeast)
1 dash of olive oil
PITA BREAD Instructions:
This bread is made by the direct method, no preference or strange things. Put together all the ingredients in a bowl, except the oil, and mix well. Let stand 10 minutes.
Then we knead two minutes, by hand or by machine, and let stand another 10 minutes. We repeat this sequence a couple of times.
Add the drizzle of oil and knead again a couple of minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.
Once the dough rests we make a ball with it and pass it to an oiled bowl. We cover it and let it double the volume.
If your oven is as plasta as mine, we will put it to heat, as hot as you can. I heat mine to 265º (without air).
We pass the fermented dough to the well-floured countertop and wear it, crushing with viciousness with our hands.
We divide it in half, cover one half with plastic and cut the other half into four equal portions. We boleamos (I put under the recipe a video that we published recently in María Lunarillos). We let them stand for five minutes, covered, to relax. We do the same with the second half of the dough.
With the fingers or with a roller we stretch the balls until they become cakes of no more than 15 cm and about 4 mm thick. If they resist being stretched, we let them rest occasionally, stretching them in stages. We put the stretched cakes on floured baking paper and cover them with a cloth so they do not dry out. Flour frequently, because it is a slightly damp dough, as it should be.
As I said at the beginning, we let them rise until it is clear that they have risen something, at least 20 minutes, although this depends on the temperature of each kitchen, of course.
With the oven at full speed (better to check the temperature with a thermometer, because it is essential that it is very hot) we put a couple of cakes on the bread stone (if you have one) or on a pair of metal trays, one on top of the other, that we will put inside the oven for this need.
Iban especially calls attention to the fact that the oven must be very hot so that the temperature contrast quickly vaporizes the moisture in the dough and inflates it.
Cook the cakes for about five minutes, until they barely begin to brown, because they immediately become crispy. You have to be aware.
We are passing the already made pita bread to a container that we will cover with a cloth, so that the breads keep warm if we are going to eat them immediately or so that they remain soft, which is their natural state.
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