Beet Pita Bread

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.

Meanwhile, Pre-heat the oven at 200ºC with (cast iron plate in, refer here for more details)

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.

Pita Bread Pizza

Pita bread means, A small round bread that can open into a pocket for filling. In Arab world Pita bread is quite popularly known as Khubz (خبز)  (Quite similar to  Chapathi. But, chapathi cooked on a griddle and Khubz baked at Oven)

The famous Middle East  sandwich Shawarma (شاورما) is made out of Pita Bread or Khubz (خبز.)  (Meat, mayonnaise, finger chips and lettuces filled and rolled in a Pita bread is shawarma)

Though the pita bread is known for filling, I want to try an Arab – Italian fusion “Pita Bread Pizza’’  i.e  Pizza Toppings on Pita Bread !

Pita Bread Pizza was baked for we knead to bake 21 : Make your Pizza challenge

 

As usual, the making process is split in two parts, one is making the Pita bread (as a base) and the second part is topping. The Pita bread recipe source is from http://www.thefreshloaf.com

Ingredients for  Pita bread :  2 cups of All purpose flour   ;     1 cup of wheat flour    ;   1 ½  tsp  Salt  ; 1 tsp  Honey   ;    2 tbsp of Instant yeast    ;    1 ¼ to 1 ½ cup of Water @ room temp.   ;    2 tbsp Olive oil.

 

Ingredients for  Topping  :  1/8 cup of Pizza sauce    ;   Bell pepper (green, yellow & red colour)   ;   1 Onion -1  (cut onion and bell pepper into thin dice shape)    ;       ½  tsp of Chili flakes   ;  ½ tsp of  Oregano    ;    ¼ cup of  low fat mozzarella cheese  ;   Olive oil for topping.

Procedure for Pita bread :  Mix all the ingredient (flour, salt, honey, olive oil) and add 1 ¼ cup of water stir/whisk well till all ingredients combine well and to form a ball. (if required, add extra water) and knead the dough about 10 minutes.

Kneading is important, to make a dough stretch and elastic so that the bread rise well in the oven. (very often, people ask me, how to make a chapatti puffy ?…….. “It’s quite easy all you need to do is, Knead the dough well”)

After knead, palace dough in a greased bowl, cover with damp cloth and allow it to rest about an hour or till become double in volume. Punch down the dough and divide it into 8 equal balls and place it in the same bowl and cover with damp cloth for about 20 – 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, Pre heat the oven with baking stone to 200ºC. Using the rolling pin, roll the ball shaped dough into thin circular shape. (like chapatti)

Place the pita (one by one) on the hot baking stone and bake about 3 minutes or puffy. (if you need a little dark texture pita, keep it in the oven for another 2 minutes . this is only require if you need to use the pita for filling / shawarma. For Pizza, we are going to bake again with topping)

Spread the sauce on the pita bread and arrange the peppers, onion, spread the cheese sprinkle chilly flakes, oregano and olive oil.

Keep in the 180ºC pre heated oven for about 35 minutes or till the cheese melts and bubbles. Serve it hot with tomato sauce.