Tuesday, August 29, 2006

5 FOODS YOU HAVE TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE, AND HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE PITA BREAD

Best Blog Tips
SusanV over at http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/ "tagged" me for this "non-meme". She wrote: "The idea is to create a list of food bloggers' top picks for things you've eaten and think that everyone should eat at least once before they die." It comes from Melissa at The Traveler's Lunchbox.


It was tough to choose, so I just decided to go with what came to mind first:

1.) homemade crusty sourdough bread

2.) Denman Island Chocolate, especially the hazelnut variety

3.) a sandwich made with homemade white bread, (vegan) mayonnaise, a ripe tomato still warm from the garden (it HAS to be freshly-picked from a garden and NOT the hothouse variety), and a little salt

4.) homemade ravioli with porcini mushroom filling

5.) hot homemade cornbread with vegan butter (try my homemade palm oil-free Buttah) and blackberries you just picked



NOW, ABOUT THAT PITA BREAD.....



I hadn't made homemade pita for some time, but yesterday I decided to try it in my new oven because I needed some for a recipe I was trying out for the newsletter. As you can see from the picture above, it worked beautifully! It's really very easy to make and better than any you can buy. You need a pizza stone or a cast iron skillet or griddle (at least 10-inch) or some unglazed tiles (you can buy slightly chipped ones at a tile store very cheaply) and a good hot oven.

The pitas (which are pretty large) are cooked one at a time, unless you have enough unglazed tiles to cover a whole oven rack, in which case you can do 2 at a time. But they take only 3 minutes to cook, so, even though you have to be there during the whole baking time, it goes fast.

Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S HALF-WHOLEWHEAT PITA BREAD
makes 8/ 9" pitas

2 1/2 cups warm water
2 tsp. dry active baking yeast (or 1 1/2 tsp. instant yeast)
3 cups wholewheat bread flour
1 T. salt
1 T. olive oil
3 cups unbleached white flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the whole wheat flour and mix briefly. Let this "sponge" stand for about 30 minutes. Add the salt, oil and unbleached flour, and knead for about 8-10 minutes. Don't add too much flour-- the dough should be silky smooth and not tough. You can knead the dough with a little oil instead of with flour if necessary to keep it from being too dry.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, oil the top, cover, and let stand in a warmish place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch it down and divide into 8 equal pieces on a floured counter. Keep the balls of dough covered when you aren't working with them.

Roll each piece out on a floured surface with a rolling pin to about 9" in diameter (they don't have to be perfectly round). For maximum "puff", try to avoid stretching the dough. I just roll out from the center toward the outer edge, turn the dough a quarter-turn and repeat, doing this until it is the right size. The thickness should be even all over. You'll get the hang of this after a while and it will go very fast.



Keep the rolled-out pita on a floured counter or floured cookie sheets and cover them.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F., with your unglazed tiles or pizza stone or cast iron pan or griddle on the rack at the lowest position (remove other racks).

My old method of transferring the pita to the hot surface was to place the pita to be cooked on a well-floured cookie sheet, pull the rack out as far as it will go and just flip the cookie sheet over to upend the pita onto whatever hot surface you are using. (If it lands with a wrinkle or two, just quickly straighten it out and shut the oven door.) If you are deft, you can just slap it onto the hot surface with your hand!  Now I use a well-floured small baker's peel or cake and pizza lifter or even large bench scraper.

When the oven is up to temperature, place a pita bread (or 2, depending on how much room you have on the tiles/stone) on the hot surface, as directed above, quickly shut the door, and set the timer for 3 minutes.

Turn on the oven light and watch it puff up before your very eyes! (At first, your efforts may not puff perfectly, but you'll get the hang of it! You can still use them even if they don't puff.)



When the timer "dings", take the pita out carefully (use a large bench scraper or small baker's peel to take it out (or check out this nifty inexpensive cake and pizza lifter), and either place the hot pita bread (which will deflate immediately) in a large open paper bag, or wrap loosely in a clean large tea towel. Stack them up as you go. The pita should not get brown or crispy! You want them to stay flexible and soft.

That's it! Eat them within a day or so (place in plastic bags after they cool thoroughly) or freeze them. If they have puffed properly, when you cut them in half, they will have a "pocket".

Another way to enjoy them is as "Zatar bread":



Brush the bread with a little olive oil and sprinkle with the zatar, a delicious Lebanese spice mixture of lemony-tasting reddish sumac, sesame, thyme and sometimes other herbs.

See this post of mine on za'atar.


Enjoy!



12 comments:

spiceislandvegan said...

Wow! How cool Bryanna! Only you can make something like this. Bravo!

I like the picture of puffed bread.
I like sumac and zatar.

This reminds me of paratha that also will puff like that when pan fried.

SIV

Anonymous said...

I've never had much luck making cornbread. It just doesn't turn out quite the way I'd like it to. What recipe do you use for your "must eat" cornbread?

Jackie said...

Thanks for the Pita recipe. I have never had much luck and mine have been too dry but yours is explained so well I should have better luck next time I make them.

Anonymous said...

Wow, those are beautiful! I used to make these and mine came out much darker. I made them on a flat skillet, like I would tortillas and used only water, whole wheat flour and salt. They puffed too! A sourdough sounds interesting. Can't wait for that.
Mmmm, I love zatar bread!

Thanks for those recipes.

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

vivacious vegan, this is the recipe I use, from my fiber cookbook:

BRYANNA'S "PERFECT" CORNBREAD
Makes 1/ 10" cast-iron skillet or 12 muffins

PS: If you don't have a skillet, use a 10" round or 9" square pan-- the skillet just makes the crust crispier.

This is my favorite cornbread—Yankee-style, since it’s a little sweet. It’s moist and corny, and can be made high-fiber and low in fat.

DRY MIX:
1 c. yellow (stoneground, if possible) cornmeal
3/4 c. wholewheat or white pastry flour
1/3 c. soy or chickpea flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

WET MIX: PS: if you have no applesauce and/or don't care about the amount of fat, forget the applesauce and just use 1/4 cup of oil or melted non-dairy marge)

1 T. lemon juice with nondairy milk to make 1 and 1/4 c.
1/4 C. unsweetened smooth applesauce
2 T. oil or melted non-dairy margarine

Oil a 10" cast iron skillet and place it in the oven while you heat it up to 375 degrees F. Whisk the dry Mix ingredients together in a medium bowl. Whisk or blend the wet Mix ingredients together and add to the Dry Mix. Mix briefly and pour into the hot skillet. Bake 20 minutes.

KleoPatra said...

Look at that pita bread PUFF up. That is SO cool...

urban vegan said...

Looks like a pocket full of fun.

bethy said...

If you make the zatar pita, try cutting up some ripe pears, mixing them with a little agave syrup (I used to use honey) Sooo good!

Anonymous said...

Any way of making the pita bread gluten free? I really miss pita bread! I know that GF bread flour is out there, and white GF flour (I would prefer to use wholegrain though)
Would simply replacing the flours work?

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

Anonymous, I have never made gluten-free pita bread, but this sounds and looks promising:
http://glutenfreebay.blogspot.com/2008/04/adopt-blogger-gluten-free-pita-bread.html

I googled "gluten-free pita" (in quotes" and found that one right away. Sounds like she knows what she's doing!

Corrin Radd said...

Used your wholewheat no knead dough to make these today and loved them. So easy and so good!

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

Fantastic, Corrin! I love that dough, too!