Arabic pita bread. Arabic pita bread Egyptian pita recipe

Pita is a traditional Arabic flat bread - a flatbread, which is interesting both in itself, because it is delicious, and as a "basis for creativity", since there is a void inside the pita that can be filled with almost any filling. Preparing pita is very easy. Shall we try?

To prepare 8 pitas you will need:

500 g flour (I took 350 g premium wheat and 150 g whole grain wheat)

1 teaspoon with a small pile of salt

1 teaspoon sugar

0.5 teaspoon baking soda (quick)

1 sachet Instant Instant Yeast (7g)

1 tablespoon of olive and sunflower oil

COOKING:

For the dough, sift flour into a bowl, add yeast, salt, sugar, soda and stir everything. If you use dry active yeast, not fast-acting, first dissolve it in a small amount of water (50 - 100 g), add a little flour from the general norm, stir until a homogeneous batter without lumps and leave warm until a foam cap, and then a foamy talker add to the flour and then everything according to the recipe.

Gradually adding water, knead a soft dough.

Cover the bowl with the dough and let it rest for 15-20 minutes. During this time, the flour will absorb water, form gluten, and the dough will be easier and easier to knead.

Knead the rested dough well until smooth and uniform. Gradually add vegetable oil while kneading. If you are preparing the dough with the addition of whole grain flour, knead gently and carefully, as such flour contains bran that can break gluten strands. If you will not use whole grain flour, knead the dough long enough (at least 5 - 7 minutes) and intensively. In the process of kneading, remember it well, rub it, put it down, you can even beat it off, it will only benefit.

Cover the dough and leave it warm until doubled in volume, and then punch down and divide into 8 equal parts.

Roll each piece into a smooth ball.

Cover the dough balls with cling film and leave for 10-15 minutes to rest. During this time, the gluten will have time to relax and the dough will become softer and more pliable, it will be easier to roll it out. Roll out the rested dough into cakes 3-4 mm thick.

Cover the rolled cakes with a film and leave for 30-40 minutes to distance. It is very convenient after rolling the cakes immediately to transfer to baking paper and then bake on it.

Preheat the oven and baking sheet (just place it inside the oven) to the highest possible temperature. Preheat the oven in advance - before planting the first baking sheet in the oven, it should stand for 20 minutes in the most heated state.

Gently drag parchment with cakes onto a hot baking sheet and place on the very bottom of the oven.

Pitas are baked very quickly - literally 3-4 minutes. In the process of baking, they will swell up a lot, but at the same time they will almost not brown at all.

Immediately after baking, cover the pita with a towel and let cool completely.

Enjoy your meal!

Now that the cakes are ready, you can start baking. I bake in a special pan, which I have already talked about more than once.
It consists of 2 large "ladles" with handles, similar to our miracle stoves. The only difference is that in the miracle stove, the spiral is closed in the top cover, i.e. it is not visible, but in my pan the spiral is open - you can see it in the photo.

The "secret" to getting an empty pocket inside the tortilla lies in the way it is baked.
The fact is that the pita must be placed on a hot surface and baked at a very high temperature, the dough does not have time to rise evenly as in the oven and “breaks”, forming an empty pocket inside. For example, here pita is baked in special ovens, placed near the fire, i.e. the temperature is very high.
Another "secret" is that the baking pita must be placed on the same side that it lay on during proofing. To do this, lift the edge of the towel and turn the pita on your hand, like this.

That is, it turns out that the pita lies on the arm upside down. Now we turn the pita directly onto the hot surface of the stove and it turns out to be in the "correct" position, i.e. she lays down on the "bottom", on the same side on which she lay on the proofing board.
When baking pita, I put the cake first on top of the lid, as it starts to swell slightly, I push it inward, and put the next cake on the lid, then I take out the first pita (I just turn the lower pan by the handle - the pita falls on the table), and the second pita I push it inward, put the 3rd pita on the lid, etc.

These are the Petes you get.

I really love Whole Wheat Bran Pitas, this is how I get them.

For whole grain pitas, I make exactly the same dough. But since whole grain flour takes more water, I make the dough a little softer, after raising the dough it becomes denser.
If you do not have such a pan, this does not mean at all that you cannot bake pita. The main condition for baking pita is high temperature.
You can bake pita in a skillet, and in the oven just brown it. To do this, heat the oven properly, put the pan on the fire (it would be nice to put a flame spreader on top of the burner, but not necessary). DO NOT OIL! As soon as the pan is hot enough (but don't heat it up!), put Pita on it, when Pita puffs up, put it in the oven. It literally takes minutes. You can’t keep the pita in the oven for a long time, otherwise it will turn into a cracker, because. The dough is thin and bakes quickly.
I tried to bake pita just in a pan, without using the oven - and it worked out. Of course, her color is not as even as from the oven, but she baked wonderfully. Heat the pan, then make the fire moderate so that the pita does not burn. Put the pita on a hot frying pan, as it begins to swell, turn it over to the other side with a spatula - I didn’t even put it in the oven, I just fried it on the pan on 2 sides and that’s it. You can not wait until the pita starts to swell, but simply turn it over after 2-3 minutes and it will swell anyway. I have an ordinary frying pan, however, I also covered the pita with a lid on top and made a light fire.

The frying pan is the most common, I took the convex lid from the pan.

The girls also baked pita in a pan with a glass lid - they put the pita in a hot pot, covered it with a lid, after 2 minutes they turned the pita over and it puffed up. In general, try it and you will definitely succeed!
The pits may not inflate if the temperature is not high enough or there is mechanical damage in the cake (the bottom is torn, for example).

Dissolve yeast in a small amount of warm water.

Sift the flour (if coarse, take a sieve with large cells).

Salt is also soluble in 0.5 cups of water.

In a hill of flour we make a recess, pour in the yeast and mix gently, gradually add salt water. The dough should be tough but elastic. Add water if necessary. Knead until the dough starts to fall behind your hands. The dough can be kept for about an hour to fit, impatient can bake right away.

We divide the dough into balls the size of a ping-pong or slightly larger. Roll out to a thickness of about 2-3 mm on a floured table.

Roll out slowly and evenly so that the surface of the cake is without holes. And put it on a dry baking sheet. The oven is heated to the maximum, we put the baking sheet on the lower level, because the bread will open. That is, as soon as it inflates, like a ball, we immediately take it out.

The process, depending on the oven and the thickness of the cake, can take from 2 to 5-7 minutes. In the absence of an oven, you can bake in a pan, also dry. We follow the process and, if necessary, carefully turn the cake over. Do not damage the surface or the bread will not rise.

Choose the size and thickness yourself, it depends on the size of your oven and frying pan. I baked in both electric and gas ovens, and in a frying pan. Skill comes with experience and don't be upset if it doesn't work right away.
This dough is also used for tannur (an oven in the ground, slightly rising above the surface). If you have a frying pan of the "vog" type, that is, it has a concave bottom, then wash the outer surface of the pan well and, putting it upside down on the gas, heat it up well and lay out the cake, do not forget to turn it over. Follow the fire safety rules and do not risk how much in vain.

This recipe is part of the promotion "Cooking Together - Cooking Week". Discussion cooking on the forum.

Having prepared tahini - sesame paste, I got a taste and took on other popular oriental dishes. The next in line was pita - the original cake, similar to an inflatable pillow. Inside, such cakes are empty, like a pocket, so it is very convenient, after cutting, to put the filling inside.

Pita is even used instead of a spoon to, for example, eat hummus, which will be discussed in the next recipe. There is a special technology for baking, but the love for these unusual cakes prompted the housewives to create a recipe for a conventional oven. The taste of products is obtained almost like traditional ones from the Middle East.

Ingredients: 1 st. water, 2.5 tbsp. flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 0.5 packs of dry yeast.

Dissolve sugar and salt in a glass of warm water.

Mix flour with yeast and liquid.

Here is such a beautiful porous risen dough.

Before continuing to work with it further, we preheat the oven, and very strongly - to the maximum. I have a maximum of 270 degrees.
Knead the dough again, divide into 8 parts

We form balls from the dough, which we roll into a cake. Cakes should not be thick - 5-7 mm thick, and a diameter of about 15 cm.

We put the baking sheet in the oven to warm up, put the cakes on it so that there is space between them, and put it in the oven (remember, it is oh-very hot!). It takes five minutes for the cakes to swell up like balls. It is not necessary to brown them so as not to become coarse.

We take out the cakes on a towel, but do not put them on top of each other, cover with another towel.

According to tradition, pita is served warm, but as it turned out, cold is also very tasty. Have you already figured out what to put in your pita pocket? Here, without looking back to the East, you can start your fantasy at a gallop: salads, pates, all kinds of mixtures there like shawarma, or maybe a cutlet with additives, like in a hamburger ... in general, you can think of a lot of things.

By the way, if you have baked a lot of cakes, then you can again adopt the national technique for storing pita: wrap it in foil and put it in the freezer.

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