Tag: Flour

Pita Bread

Introduction

Pitas are a bread I grew up eating and have missed greatly. The pitas in the United States are these sad, dry things that only resemble what I ate as a child in that they have a pocket. My goal with this recipe is to achieve a pita that is light, fluffy, soft, and having a pocket would be nice too.

Experimental Findings

I heard people do this in the oven, why a are you doing it on the stovetop?

I’ve also seen it done in the oven though I’ve never tried it myself. I like the control I get when I do it on the stovetop and if I get multiple pans going, it’s as fast, if not faster, than the oven method.

Tests

Pita Bread: Test 1 – Plump voluptuous pitas


Pita Bread: Test 1

Source

Total time: 1.5 hours
Yield: 20 small pitas

Equipment

Standing Mixer
Parchment paper
Rolling pin.

Ingredients

32g (1 1/2 Tbsps) granulated sugar
7g (1 Tbsp) active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1kg all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups water

Procedure

  1. To keep the dough from drying out I brought out all of my kitchen towels (6-8) and had cut out 20 roughly 6×6 inch sheets of parchment on which my rolled out pitas could rest.
  2. S
  3. ugar, yeast and 1/2 cup lukewarm water were added to the standing mixer and allowed a few minutes for the yeast to activate. You can tell it’s ready for use when a thin layer of yeast foam forms on the surface.
  4. Once the yeast was ready, the flour, salt, olive oil and 1 cup of water were added to the mixer. The dough hook was attached and the mixer started on low to get everything incorporated. As the mixer was running, another 1 1/2 cup of water was added. The mixture was pretty sticky at this point but let the mixer run another 5 minutes or so and it should stiffen a bit and become more easily handled. Keep the dough covered in the next few steps so it doesn’t dry out.
  5. The dough was divided into 20 equal pieces. I had balls of dough at roughly 80g each. You don’t have to weigh them out if you’re not as obsessive as I am. You’re welcome to simply cut the dough to roughly the right size and take the risk of making uneven pitas, disappointing your parents and burning in the fires of bread hell. As you’re dividing the dough, keep it covered so it doesn’t dry out.
  6. Take each piece of dough and roll it out to roughly 1/4 inch thickness and as round as you can and place the rolled pita on a piece of parchment. I highly recommend not using too much flour so you don’t end up with a thick flour coating on your final product but using enough that the dough is thoroughly covered so it doesn’t stick. Delicate balances in standards are part of being human, you should be used to it by now or it’s time to come to terms with the hypocrisy. For bread God’s sake, keep the dough covered so it doesn’t dry out.
  7. I heated up as many skillets as I could get to the same temperature (three). I don’t have actual temperature readings but on my electric stove top, exact medium is the setting that works best. You want to get your pitas to get a nice deep brown coloring after 3ish minutes.
  8. When my skillets were heated enough and/or I got tired of waiting, the pitas were removed from the parchment and placed in the pan with the parchment side down. This is not arbitrary, the parchment side is wetter. I found that if the wetter side faced up, I had more large localized bubbles forming instead of the beginning of a nice pocket.
  9. The pita was left alone until a large bubble began to form. Giving it enough time is the key to creating a good pocket. If you’re failing to create pockets, give you pitas more time on this first side. Once a decent sized bubble was forming, I flipped it and let it keep cooking until the pita puffs fully into a little bread pillow.
  10. When my pitas ran into issues and they wouldn’t rise I would often try to flip the pita again. This fixed the issue about 50% of the time. Once in a while, the pita just refused. These unpuffed pitas became great snacks while cooking or for those visitor that come sniffing about to see if maybe there are any discards. With practice you can eliminate disgraceful flat pitas but then what will you feed your nosy visitors?
  11. Lastly, you can tell your pita is done cooking when there are no shiny bits of dough anywhere. They will get all matte all around. Shiny=raw dough, matte=cooked.

Results

These pitas come out the way I remember them from my childhood in Israel. They are fluffy, pillowy, light, and pocketed. I also love that this recipe does not require any rising time for the dough and instead takes advantage of the amount of time it takes to handle each piece of dough and the natural process of creating this bread.

Notebook

Pita Bread

Fresh Pasta

Introduction

Pasta is a very versatile dish as the dough itself is rather bland and lends well to sauces and toppings. To me a pasta should be delicate enough to be worth making fresh but tough enough to survive rough handling with a fork as it is spun around the fork into saucy spools.

Experimental Findings

What’s the verdict on the first test recipe?

The first test yielded a very delicate pasta. I rolled it out very thin as well so it almost felt like it might break too easily. Instead it held up beautifully and was gentle and tender. It was a good pasta. I wish it had more chew to it though.

How can more chew be obtained?

One option I’m seeing around is to make the pasta with half all-purpose flour and half semolina flour. I plan on trying this next.

Can the pasta be frozen for later use?

Yes and no. If I was to freeze this pasta I would coat it first in semolina and then place it into an air tight container in small nests. The problem is that few containers are truly air tight and inevitably your flour coating will get hydrated and your pasta will stick together. Int he short term you can definitely freeze it but I wouldn’t leave it there long. Next time I would like to try to freeze the pasta sheets instead of the cut pasta. I think this would work better as full sheets are easier to un-stick.

Tests

Fresh Pasta: Test 1 – Delicate Fettuccine

Fresh Pasta: Test 1

Source

Fresh Pasta Dough Recipe

Total time: 2 hours
Servings: 8 small bundles

Equipment

Pasta maker/roller
Having the cutter attachment is advisable
Standing mixer

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. All of the ingredients were combined in the standing mixer and mixed on low using the hook attachment.
  2. Once fully incorporated, the mixer was run for another 10 minutes.
  3. After kneading, the dough was wrapped tightly in plastic wrap rested in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  4. The dough was removed from the fridge and divided into 4 equal pieces.
  5. Working with one piece at a time and keeping the rest of the dough covered to prevent drying, each piece of dough was coated with some flour and patted down into a disc roughly 1/8-1/4 inch thick.
  6. The disc of dough was then run through the biggest setting on the pasta roller, then the setting was reduced by 1 and the process repeated making sure to reapply flour to the dough as needed to prevent sticking.
  7. Once the dough was run through the thinnest setting it went through the pasta cutter attachment to produce my fettuccine.

Notebook

Fresh Pasta