How many times have you considered making something and thought: Seems like a lot of work when it’s so easy to buy at the store.  But still  . . . you keep coming back to it . . . and still you keep putting it off . . . until our Lovely Kitchen of the Month Ilva (Lucullian Delights) said: Let us have “Country-Style Whole-Wheat Pita” that was where I was with Pita.  

I’ve only been home from my very long absence and have only gotten this bread made twice and I am so sorry because this bread deserves at least a month of discovery.  Here’s what I can tell you: 

The dough is easy. 

The shape is easy. 

You must have a really hot oven.

You may not get pockets in each pita round.

It really doesn’t matter, this is wonderfully versatile bread.

The full recipe makes 16 pita and that’s too many for Gorn & I.  The recipe works perfectly cut in half.

Over at LucullianDelights you’ll find the recipe.  Now in this case Ilva baked with the cups and used a table to convert and make it metric for you.  Because I have totally fallen in love with metric and wish all my recipes were in metric, I try very hard to use my cups the first time I do a recipe and then weigh the amounts.  Then I write those amounts into my book or here on my site and never again dirty my cups for them.  Holy Batman, is that a conundrum when Ilva, on the metric system since birth, uses cups and I, raised with cups, converts to the metric?   

COUNTRY-STYLE WHOLE-WHEAT PITA

Adapted from Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Bible

eight 6-inch round flatbreads

285g water

1 tblsp active dry yeast

pinch of sugar

26g olive oil

1 tblsp salt

250g) whole-wheat pastry flour

(atta flour is the traditional flour but I haven’t found any yet)

263g unbleached all-purpose flour

1. Measure Whole-Wheat Pastry flour into bowl with instant yeast and sugar.  (The sugar may not be a traditional ingredient but it will help the bread brown without interfering with the taste).

2. Combine all water,  olive oil, salt and whole-wheat pastry flour.  Mix until creamy.

Half a cup all purpose unbleached flour at a time, mix to a soft, shaggy dough is clearing the sides of a bowl.

3.  I kneaded this by hand forming a soft, springy, moist and smooth dough.  Add smaller and smaller amounts of flour for the last cup of flour to avoid adding too much flour.  When the dough is still very sticky, I stop adding flour in any measurable amount and resort to dusting my hands with flour.  Finally the dough will be smooth, soft and slightly sticky.

4. Lightly oil surface of dough and place in lightly sprayed container.  Let rise until doubled in size: anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes.  Mine took 45 minutes.

5. Oven pre-heated to 475° F (Second baking I raised this to 480°) with a baking stone set on the bottom rack.  None of the pita I baked on bare metal pan, silpat or parchment produced a pocket.  I had the best and most consistent pockets when I baked the pita rounds on the bare well pre-heated baking stone.

 

Divide dough in half, return half to bowl and cover.  Again divide dough into 8 equal pieces and form into ball.  Cover, allowing to rest while forming the other half of dough.

Dust bench with whole-wheat pastry flour, roll each ball into a 6-inch circle (may need an additional 5 or 10 minutes to relax gluten if dough resists rolling).  Let rest on peel or floured dish towel or parchment paper, covered until puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Baking time: On the baking stone, mine took 11 minutes and were lovely brown.

Do not check and open oven door for the first 4 minutes!

Pita are done when fully puffed and light brown.

Stack puffed hot pita between clean dish towels.

For my first pita with a pocket I was very untraditional and unorthodox:

I spread some Oregon blue cheese inside and stuffed it full then with lemon soaked smoked salmon for lunch on my way out the door for a hair cut.

And what is that Summery Salad for the opening photo there for

And for dinner we had very traditional Fattoush!  Oh my heart be still, sooooooooo goooooooood!  Remember that Panzanella, the Italian Bread Salad? 

This is one of those traditional dishes that some people can really get their panties in a knot over, just be snobby about.  They will tell you Fattoush NEVER has x, y or z in it.  I say life is to short for that kind of thinking and Susan and Mary agree with me.  I say Fattoush probably needs to have: Pita, lush ripe tomatoes, cucumber, mint and sumac.  Then it depends on what happens to be on hand because while this might be served in a five star restaurant, it wasn’t born there.  Like Panzanella, this was designed to use stale bread and avoid waste.

Here’s how I did it.

The dressing: 5 parts olive oil to 1 part fresh lemon juice, 4 cloves garlic crushed, salt & pepper and 2 teaspoons sumac. 

Pour the dressing over all.

Enjoy a glass of wine.

Dinner’s ready.

Instruction just to the right if you’d like to join us baking this pita and be a Bread Baking Buddy!