Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The Bread Bible: Pita bread

Pita BreadPita bread is the assignment for Alpha Bakers Bread Bible project. I'd summarize these as pretty quick, pretty easy, very good. I did a half-recipe of the pita bread, and gave it the afternoon to develop a bit of flavor not having time to wait on an overnight rest. As always, I let my KitchenAid do the kneading, adding a bit more water early on when the dough looked too dry.

Pita BreadAfter the time in the fridge, I divided my dough into 6 lumps to make the smaller-sized pitas. I rolled them out without flour on my silicone mat, then baked the first one on the preheated oven stone. It puffed over maybe half the suface area. I briefly thought about following the instructions to increase the hydration to improve on the puffing (puffery? puff-ability?), but decided that was too much trouble. Instead, I rolled the others out a bit thinner and let them rest again, then was more careful putting them on the stone to keep the pita flat and in full contact with the hot stone. Success--the next round had pretty much a full pocket across the pita. Pita Bread
Pita BreadI stuffed one with a slices of pork sausage with pear from Pine Street Market, and some mustard greens I sautéed in a bit of the drippings from he sausage. Very nice, though I should have cut back on the mustard greens. The mustard flavor was a good compliment to the sausage, but they were quite spicy-hot. A few sinus-clearing moments there!


6 comments:

  1. Your pita looks perfect! I didn't know mustard greens are spicy hot. Maybe the chinese mustard greens are different not spicy...but more bitter.

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  2. They look great Nancy. I should make them again for sandwiches. I like your sandwich shot!

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  3. Mmm - your pitas look perfect. I look forward to baking mine tonight. Think I'll try the stove top method.

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  4. Good tip on how to get the best 'puffery'. I like your terminology too!

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