Simple Pita Bread Recipe

As my readers should know by now, I love pita bread. Pita bread is traditionally used in Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean cuisines, where the bread is a staple. The pita bread is a flat bread with a large pocket inside, which forms as it cooks quickly at high temperatures. The pocket is ideal for placing any of your favourite fillings - take your pick. I have even spread peanut butter and honey in a pita pocket as a pick-me-up snack.

But usually, people make sandwich pita rolls with meat and vegetables as in the Middle Eastern restaurants. I use it to make sandwich rolls and homemade pita chips, as well as occasionally dipping it in soups. I frequently buy fresh pita bread from the Middle Eastern grocery store. But as I have written about in the past, pita bread price inflation has made buying pita bread an expense. Because of that, I decided to attempt to make my own pita bread at home!

In the Middle East, pita is made in brick ovens, where very high heat can be achieved. It is very hard to duplicate in a home kitchen, but this easy recipe below adapted from a video I found, combined with high heat comes very close.



The dough is very easy to work with and comes together quickly. In fact, the only time-consuming part is cooking them. Each pita cooks quickly, but you have to be there the whole time to monitor their progress. The resulting pitas a delicious and well worth the effort.

Note: You can substitute 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour in this recipe without sacrificing anything in terms of the texture of the finished product.

Pita Bread Ingredients

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/2 tsp)
1 1/2 cups water, warm (105-115F)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3-4 cups all-purpose flour

Procedure

Combine sugar, water and yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes, until slightly foamy. Stir in salt and 3 cups of flour, until dough is smooth. Add remaining flour, a tablespoon or two at a time, mixing until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl into a ball. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 4-5 minutes. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 1.5 hours.


Turn on your broiler, leaving the rack in the center of the oven, and very lightly oil a baking sheet. Punch the dough down and divide it into 10 even pieces. Shape each into ball by grasping the corners of each piece and pinching them together. Cover the balls with a clean dish towel and allow the dough to rest, for 15 minutes so they will be easier to roll out. Roll out until balls form circles about 1/8 inch thick. Place on baking sheet (you may have to do them in groups of only 2 as in the picture) and broil for 2 minutes, until lightly browned. Flip over and broil again for 1.5 - 2 minutes, until browned. You may have to adjust the cooking time a bit, depending on how hot your broiler gets.Remove from oven and cool between kitchen towels to keep the pitas soft. Once they are cool, store in an airtight container.

This recipe made 10 pitas.

Singapore Popiah - Baked Spring Roll Recipe

I love spring rolls. But I do not like them when they are deep-fried, the way it is usually done in the restaurants. That's just too much grease for me - and you know they don't use the good oils in the restaurants. SoI decided to try and make my own spring rolls at home - by baking them! I tried this yesterday, and it turned out great. Not bad for my first try.

I adapted the recipe below from a traditional Singapore Popiah (spring roll) recipe; made some changes to it to suit my own tastes.
I used store-bought frozen spring roll wrappers - the product I used is from Singapore (see the picture). All you have to do is unfreeze the wrappers, by leaving it outside the freezer in its packaging for 25 mins. Then remove the packaging, and place a damp cloth over the wrappers. The wrappers will easily separate once you are ready to apply the fillings.

Spring Roll Filling Ingredients:

Ground lean meat (optional)
Diced Onions
Diced Carrots
Diced Red Cabbage
Diced Potatoes
Ginger
Garlic
Salt
Soy Sauce
Spice Powder
Olive Oil

Procedure:

Add the olive oil to a preheated skillet set over medium to medium-high heat and cook meat, onions, carrots, cabbage and potatoes with the garlic and ginger. Then add soy sauce and spice powder and mix well. I found that the red cabbage and soy sauce gave this filling recipe a nice smoky taste. Transfer to a bowl, and keep aside to cool. Pre-heat the oven to 400F.




Now peel off the first layer of the spring roll wrapper from the stack, and spread onto a clean surface.







Place the cooked filling in a diagonal fashion. Then I added fresh uncooked spinach.








Pull one side of the flap over to close the filling.









Fold the two ends as in the picture, and proceed to roll the wrapper, pulling over the flaps to close the roll.









Place the spring rolls on a baking dish, brush olive oil over the rolls. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Garlic Pita Chips

I just love bread. Bread has received a lot of flak over the past few years. Everyone I know is into some form of a low carbohydrate diet. And bread, especially white bread, is on the to-avoid-eating list. I indulge in my fair share of breads now and then, but I have found a perfect bread that fits my requirement of being healthy, low fat, filling and tasty. That's the wheat pita bread. I love pita bread so much that I need to always have a ready stash of it sitting at home in my freezer.

Pita bread has about 110 calories. I usually fill with it with salads, tuna, lean meats or scrambled eggs to make a lunch or dinner pita sandwich wrap. But I also use pita bread to make tasty homemade snacks. Recently, I noticed that Trader Joes have on their shelves Crunchy Pita chips on the snacks aisle. Now I love shopping at Trader Joes, but I can just as easily make pita chips at home myself.

And so can you. Enjoy this simple and healthy recipe :)

Garlic Pita Chips


Ingredients

Pita Bread
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Dried Rosemary
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°. Cut pita bread into wedges (you can determine the size you want - I usually cut them into 8 wedges). Lightly coat one side of each pita bread with the olive oil using a brush. Sprinkle with garlic powder, dried rosemary, and salt to taste. Arrange pita bread wedges in a single layer on baking tray. Bake at 425° for 6 minutes or until golden.

Eat with hummus, or a low-fat dip of your choice.

This recipe has been inspired by Martha Stewart (with some of modifications).