What's That in Your Pocket? Pita Bread

One of the most exciting discoveries I ever made in the kitchen was pita. It is so ubiquitous in middle eastern cooking and it is impossible to find in bush Alaska. So, what's a Jew to do? Figure out how to do it yourself. It is amazingly easy, and doesn't really take that much time, though clean up can be a bit dusty.


The question people always ask is, "how do you get them to puff." The answer is simply. They puff on their own. Adding water to flour produces gluten, a protein that gives bread its chewiness. Kneading dough helps develop that protein even more, improving the elasticity of the dough. Yeast, lovely little fungi that they are, eat the sugars that are naturally in flour and belch out carbon dioxide. That's what makes bread rise. In the case of pita, the 15 minutes of rising that is done while your are forming the disks creates tiny little air pockets in the dough. When you put the disks into the oven, the moisture in dough converts to steam, fills those little air pockets with expanding hot air turning your disk into a gluttenous balloon. Violla! You have pockets in your pita. Now go out a make something wonderful to fill it!

Ingredients

• 1 Tbs active dry yeast
• 1 Tbs sugar
• 2 cups warm water (tepid to the touch ~102 F)
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 5 cups all purpose flour (I prefer 80/20 white to wheat, but you can use up to 40% wheat flour)

Directions

1. In a medim bowl add water, yeast and sugar. Stir and then let it stand for 5 minutes.
2. Add 2.5 cups of flour to the water mixture. Stir until all the flour is incorporated.
3. Add 1.25 cups of flour and stir until all the flour is incorporated.
4. Continue adding half of the remaining flour at a time, stirring after each addition, until you cannot incorporate any more flour by mixing.
5. Turn the flour out onto a lightly floured work surface. Incorporating the remaining flour as you go, knead the dough for about 8 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Cover with a plastic bag and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 425F and place a baking sheet on the middle wrack. If you have a convection oven, you can spead the baking process by using two baking sheets, one in the top third, the second in the bottom third of the oven.
7. Cut the ball of dough into 16 equal pieces. Using a pulling motion, from the top of each piece, pull the dough around and pinch underneath to form a smooth ball. Place the balls of dough on a floured surface and cover with a plastic bag or a tea towel.

8. Flour a large area (about 2ft x 3ft) to prepare it for storing the rising pitas.
9. Working one piece at a time on a lightly dusted surface, flatten a ball with the plam of your hand. Using a rolling pin, work from the center of each flatten dough and roll the disk into a round of between 5 and 6 inches in diameter, being careful to try and not form any creases in the disks. Move the disk to the prepped rising area. Repeat with the remaining dough balls. Once you have finished with the last dough ball, relax fiveminutes. Maybe get a drink of water.

10. Open the oven and get your hot cookie sheet. Be careful! Place 4 disks on each sheet, making sure that the edges don't touch. 
11. Return the sheet to the oven and bake the pitas for 4 minutes. Open door, flip the pitas over and cook another 2-3 minutes. If you are using a convection oven and two cookie sheets, it may be a good idea to rotate the sheets at this time.
12. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven, slide the pitas onto a cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining pitas.
13. Let the pitas rest until the are completely cool and then store in a tightly sealed plastic bag.