A Hungry Bear

I was finally motivated to try cooking Greek food for my mom (Yia-Yia) not by the lamb & eggplant shepherd’s pie, but really by this post on Smitten Kitchen. She reviewed the recipe for homemade pita bread from my favorite bread book, Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Bread Bible. I couldn’t believe how easy it looked. I’ve tackled some of her other loaf bread recipes that are far more complicated, so I was sure I could handle this. And they actually came out puffy and soft, just like the one’s in Smitten Kitchen’s pictures. The hands-on time was less than an hour too.

I made these to go with a Greek-style braised pork and tzatziki sauce, for which I’ll be posting recipes over the next couple of days.

Grocery list: 3 cups (16 ounces) AP flour, 2 teaspoons (0.5 ounces) salt, 2 teaspoons instant yeast, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 1/4 cups water (or 10.4 ounces; at room temperature, between 70-90 degrees F).

Combine the yeast and flour in the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir with a fork or whisk to distribute the yeast, then sprinkle in the salt. (Prevents direct contact between the yeast and salt - if you add them at the same time so most of the yeast touches the salt, it can kill off the yeast.)

Add the olive oil.

Using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed (#2 on a kitchenaid) for about 30 seconds, or until the flour is moistened throughout.

Switch out the paddle for a dough hook and knead at medium speed (#4 on a kitchenaid) for 7-10 minutes. The dough should form a single ball and come clean of the bowl towards the end of the kneading process. It should be smooth but still a little sticky to the touch.

Add a little vegetable oil to a large bowl or plastic straight-sided dough rising container, and use your fingers to evenly coat all the sides. Transfer the dough to the container; flip it over so there’s a thin coating of oil on all sides of the dough. Refrigerate the dough overnight (anywhere between 4 hours and 3 days actually). During the first 4 hours in the fridge, Beranbaum suggests checking it every hour and punching down the dough if it starts rising too aggressively, although I don’t know why.

The dough will double in volume in the fridge; move the container to the counter an hour before you want to shape them so it can return to room temperature for easier handling. At this point, preheat the oven to 475 degrees and set a pizza stone or baking stone on the bottom rack of the oven.

Lightly flour the counter, and turn the dough out.

Slice the dough into equal pieces (8 for larger pitas, or 12 pieces for smaller ones).

Press each piece of dough into a small circle, then cover all of them with plastic wrap. Allow them to rest for about 10 minutes so they won’t fight back against the rolling pin.

Using a rolling pin, roll each circle out to about 1/4 inch thick.

I found it was easier to bake these larger pitas one at a time. Quickly transfer a circle of dough from the counter to the baking stone. Beranbaum cautioned that the pita would not puff up very much if the dough wasn’t moist enough, so I preemptively sprinkled a few drops of water on each side of the dough right before opening the oven. Bake directly on the stone for 3 minutes. The pita will puff but not turn brown. Remove it from the oven with a spatula. Continue to cook in batches until all the pitas are done.