Pita Bread is made for filling. the perfect pita bread should split its pockets for filling. But in my last Pita bread, Instead of filling, I did topping on the bread like pizza.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, it’s a soft, slightly leavened flat bread quite popular in Middle Eastern cuisines. This time, wanted to do the fillings in the Pita pocket and also do some natural coloring on the bread.
Ingredient : ½ cup of raw beet root juice ; 1 ½ cup all purpose flour ; 1 tsp of salt ; 1 tsp of instant yeast ; 2 tbsp of olive oil
Add yeast, salt in to the ½ cup lukewarm beet root juice (by keeping the juice 30sec in the microwave) in a large mixing bowl and keep it aside for 5 min.
Add oil to the yeast mixture and stir to dissolve. Add the 1 cup of all-purpose flour and whisk together. Stir until mixture forms a shaggy mass. Dust with a little flour and then knead in bowl for 1 minute. Add slowly the rest of the flour and form a kind of dry dough.
Continue to knead lightly until to form smooth dough. Cover bowl with damp cloth and keep it at the room temperature for about 1 hour or it’s doubled in size.
Punch down dough and divide into 4 pieces of equal size to form a ball shape. Place dough balls on work surface, cover with a damp cloth and leave for 10 minutes.
Take out the one ball at a time and press into a flat disc and roll into a 6-inch circle, 1/8 inch thick with rolling pin. (Dust with flour if required)
Carefully lift the dough circle and place quickly on Cast iron plat in the oven. After 3 - 4 minutes the bread should be nicely puffed. With tongs flip it over and bake for 1 minute.
Allow to cool and open the pocket and stuff with your choice of veg or non-veg.
