The weather is lovely at the moment and we have a lot of salad produce coming from the garden so what better way to enjoy it for lunch than making a delicious salad filling for a pitta? I make my own bread once a week so instead of making a large loaf I used one-third of the dough to make a few pittas.
When I first experimented with making these. I was thrilled to discover that the dough spontaneously separates in the middle when cooked in the skillet.
I use for making the dough, one-third each of strong bread flour, spelt flour and kamut flour with salt, sugar yeast and water accordingly. For my loaf I use 8 ozs of each flour with 2 teaspoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of quick yeast and 426 ml. of tepid water. Mix all the ingredients together and mix into a soft dough, kneading for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Put in a bowl brushed generously with olive oil and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour until doubled in size then knead again and leave for a further 45 minutes.
To make the pittas, tear a piece the size of a tennis ball from the dough and roll it out on a floured board into the required shape, an oblong or circle, about 3 mm thick. Heat a skillet to very hot and place the pittas on it to cook making sure they don’t burn. These generally take about 3 mins on a medium to high heat each side. You can also grill them. Turn over and cook on the other side when the dough will bubble up and separate.
These can be stored in the fridge in a polythene bag until needed and re-heated under the grill. Great fun.
Pittas are great toasted and used for all those dips like:- humous, tsaziki, skordalia, ect.
Androula's Kitchen - Cyprus on a Plate 