Soft Pita Bread
I've been making this pita bread for a while now, and I've come to the conclusion that this process is my favorite. The pita you get from this recipe is super soft, and it pretty much always puffs up like a balloon for me. The key here is to take about 2/3 of the flour used and separately add boiling water to it. This par-cooks the dough and yields a softer product. Something I'm a fan of.
If you don't have a Pizza Stone you can do this in a cast iron pan on the stove top. Or perhaps you could preheat a cast iron and bake it like you would with a pizza stone. I believe baking the pita is almost a grantee to get a fully puffed pocket. High heat is also probably an important contribution.
Mess around with the technique and see what works best for you!
RECIPE
- 400 grams of Flour
- 300 ml of boiling water
- 1 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1 tsp instant yeast
- 25 ml olive oil (or any oil, I suppose)
Measure out the flour into a bowl and remove about 1 cup of it into a separate bowl. Pour the boiling water over the rest of the flour and stir until it's smooth. I like to use chopsticks for this. Set that aside and let it cool while you mix together the remaining flour, salt, yeast, and oil. Once they're combined add them to the dough. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes, form into 8 balls of dough, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for one hour.
In the last half-hour of letting the dough rise, turn on your oven to 500 degrees and preheat your pizza stone or cast iron pan. Give that about 20-30 minutes to preheat.
Roll out each of the balls and shake off any excess flour you use for working with. Place the discs directly on your chosen cook surface and cook for just about a minute per side. I've found that these things cook pretty quickly, and I haven't had any underdone just yet. I would start at one-minute-per-side and just keep flipping them until they have a nice color you like.
I like to cut these up into triangles, like a pizza, and dip them in hummus. They also make amazing falafel/gyro sandwhiches.
