Pita Bread

So the other night I decided to revisit the falafel recipe (October '09) - and for those of you who thought making them seemed too ambitious, you really must try it. I promise it's no harder than making meatballs!

Anyway, I also decided that pita bread shouldn't be so hard to make, given my recently gained bread making confidence. So I went for the first recipe I found, mixed the ingredients, then finished reading the recipe, where it said to let the dough rise for THREE hours! It was already like 7:00, so I disobeyed, let it rise an hour and voila! Homemade pita bread!

And let me say this. As with most things, homemade is SO much better. They were soft & still warm from the oven when we stuffed them with the falafel, veggies & yogurt/cucumber dressing. Killer, killer, killer. Please give this a try, you will impress yourself with your skills!

Ingredients:

* 1/2 Tbs yeast

* 1 1/2 cup warm water (120-130 degrees)

* 3 cups all purpose flour (I used bread flour)

* 1 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon sugar

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.

Combine flour and salt in large bowl.

Add the yeast-water and stir with wooden spoon until combined.

Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic.

Coat a large bowl with olive oil and put dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated.

Allow to sit in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until it has doubled in size. (Since I was trying to rush this part along, I turned on the oven to about 200, then turned it off after about 5 minutes. Then I put the bowl of dough in the oven to rise.)

Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces and shape into balls. Let them sit covered for 10 minutes to rise. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to also preheat your baking sheets. I think this scorching heat is the secret to getting that cool pocket in the bread. Not sure what magical thing happens in there, but it works.

Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.

Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes.

Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking.

And there you have it!