Pita Bread (The magic Balloon Show)

After this week's vegan brunch I got some requests to share my pita bread recipe. This simple bread is very easy once you get the hang of it and if you have a oven with a window you also get a free show. Making my own pita bread never occurred to me in Israel. This is something that is always available in the cheapest freshest ways wherever you are. This was until I spent the summer working as a personal chef on a small island off the coast of Maine. True you can find pita bread in the supermarket in a lot of places in the states but they are mostly the thin, dry and big-enough-to-wear-as-a-hat kind. Not my idea of a hummus worthy pita.

As a personal chef I like to create adaptations to my specialties through collaboration with the family. Hummus was requested one day and, this being something I love and have made many times, I was very happy to be making it, but what about pita? yeast and sourdough are no strangers to me but I had never attempted pita bread. I set to work and eventually came out with the most beautiful pita bread I had ever seen. Watching them blow up, setting them to cool and preparing this feast I remember being so proud of myself. My skills had not failed me in these new waters.

I had been there for a few weeks and cooking everyday. These were friends of the family and I felt very comfortable. In my leniency, I had broken one of my biggest rules as a chef: Never serve something you are making for the first time.

We sat down to eat and discovered too late that, while they did look nice and tasted great, my pita bread had no pockets, and pita bread without pockets is just... well.. bread. They did not seem to mind but I was heart broken.

A few years have gone by and I have cracked the secret of the pocket which I will share with you today:

The Secrets:

1. The stickier and softer the dough the harder it will be to work with and the better your Pita will be.
2. The pocket happens with the intense heat from the baking surface. Preheat your baking pan, use a stone or even cook them on the stove in a frying pan.
3. Let them steam for a bit in a container or bag after their ready so they got softer, too long and they'll get wet.

What You Will Need (For 8 Pita)

3 Cups of white flour
1 1/4 Cups of water (if the water is too hot it will kill your yeast)
1 Tsp. of dry yeast
1 Tsp. of salt
1 Tbsp of sugar
1 Tbsp of oil (whichever you like, I use olive)





What To Do

1. In a large bowl mix a 1/4 cup of water with the sugar and dry yeast until the yeast melts.
2. Add flour, salt and 1 cup of water and work until consistent. You might feel like the dough is too soft or sticky at this point but trust me it will work out.
3. Put the oil in a clean bowl and roll the dough in it so you have an oil covered ball of dough. cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise for 45 minutes.
4. Work the dough with your hands and stretch into a tight ball this time. the oil should dtill be there helping you so there is no need for more flour at this point. If you don't know how to stretch dough into a ball you can flatten it and fold the edges in like a candy wrapper, then flip it over so to smooth side is on top. Cover with the towel and let rise for another 30 min.
5. Preheat oven with a large pan inside to 450 F. Heating the pan is super important.
6. punch the air out of the dough and roll it into 8 balls of more or less equal size, let rise on sheet of baking paper and let rise for 10 min.
7. Flatten balls using a small plate or a rolling pin, it's important that the height of the pita is even all over. Place straight onto the preheated pan that's already in the oven for 7 minutes. Make sure the side of the pita that was the bottom when it was rising will be the top when it is baking. If you cannot fit them all in one go that's ok but only flatten the balls right before baking them.
8. The Baked pita bread should be closed in a container, a covered bowl or a paper bag for about 10 minutes after the come out of the oven. I like to wrap them in the towel I used to cover the dough. This steams the typical hard crust of bread into the soft shells we love on our pita bread.
9. Don't forget to take them out of  the container after ten minutes or your pita bread will end up swimming in a bowl of water.

What Else?
you can make these on a hot pan on your stove, just rub the pan with a bit of oil first and get ready to bake one by one. This is especially fun to watch.
I also like to make 12 balls instead of 8 for the mini size vibe.
You can also change 1 cup of white flour with whole wheat or rye.