Pita Bread

In Israel, the challenge was to make "American" food (or "Mexican" food, as the case may be) with available ingredients and equipment.  Here, the challenge is to make Israeli or Mediterranean food with similar limitations.

In Israel, pita and hummus (and various veggies) quickly became a staple in my diet.  Here, both pita and  hummus can be purchased, but, like buying tortillas in Israel, the price is prohibitive and the product quality is usually lacking.  I did buy some hummus the other day (and it turned out to be decent, if not quite excellent) and I needed some pita to accompany it.  Store-bought pita here is simply not acceptable, so I made my own.

I have made pita quite a few times before, using a few different recipes, but generally with similar results.  They're not quite like the pitas that can be purchased all over Israel, but they're still tasty.  Basically, I think that just about any fairly generic bread recipe can be made into pita (instead of loaves).  For anyone out there who might want more specific directions, I'll try to reproduce what I did today.

1 c. warm water
2 Tbsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar

Mix these together and let sit for a while for the yeast to start foaming.  Then add:
1 c. white flour

Mix in and let sit another 15 minutes or so.  Letting it sit a really long time (like over night) would probably improve the flavor, but it isn't necessary.

Add:
1.5 c. warm water
1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. salt
3 c. white flour
4 c. wheat flour

Mix together, adding more flour or more water, depending on what is needed to create a dough that is easy to handle - not too sticky.  Kneed.  Let it sit and rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 450F and put a pizza stone or something similar in to warm up with the oven.  (I ended up using an aluminum cookie sheet turned upside down.  Not ideal, but it works.)

Punch down and divide into 16 roughly equal balls of dough.  Roll out into 6-8" diameter circles.  (If they aren't prefect circles, don't worry.  They'll still taste good, and you'll get better with practice.)  Let rise for a while, maybe 15-20 minutes or so. Some will have to rise longer as you'll only be able to cook a couple at a time.  You'll probably want to use flour or cornmeal to keep them from sticking as you'll want to be able to pick them up easily.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as will fit on your baking surface (I could fit 2 at a time).

Starting to poof up in the oven.

They will need to cook for about 4-5 minutes.  (Unless you make them bigger and fatter...then they need longer, maybe 10 minutes.)  They should poof up in the oven, forming the pocket.

Fully poofed pocket.

Remove the pockets from the oven (leaving the pan in there to be ready for the next batch).  Lean on each other as they cool.  Be careful if you try to deflate them - the steam inside is quite warm.  Once they were deflated and cooled, mine had a diameter of about 6 inches and were about half an inch thick.  

Finished product.

I ate them for lunch with my family - I put falafel balls in the pita with various veggies, hummus, and cheese.  My dad used similar ingredients but with roast beef instead of falafel.  My mom put peanut butter and bananas in hers. Tonight we used them to make individual portion pizzas.  They're very versatile.  

If you don't eat them all right away they can be frozen and re-heated in a toaster.