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<pre>Greetings All

Having spent yesterday making corn tortillas on a clay comal with a friend
from Mexico, I thought I'd get back to olive oil and share with the list the
following article on what we, in the States, call pitta, pita or pita bread
-- the latter a rather oxymoronic coupling as pita means pie in Greek, for
that is the country whose cooking first introduced it to Americans. In
Turkish the name is pide. The bread is ubiquitous in the lands of the Eastern
Mediterranean, where it is often referred to as khubz, the generic term for
bread in Arabic, and baladi. Our Arabic-speaking members will have to tell us
what the latter term means. This is not the recipe for morning bread with
Za'atar mentioned in my original post on Syrian olive oil, but the bread
served with mezze and to accompany meals, as well as the basis of many
bread-based dishes. It is of course made with olive oil.

The article is from the Atlantic Monthly's web site, Atlantic Unbound, and is
written by Corby Kummer, the Atlantic's regular cookbook reviewer.

Kaye

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/corby/ckpita.htm <A
HREF="http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/corby/ckpita.htm">Click here:
Corby's Table - 95.03</A>

Pita Bread
by Corby Kummer

March 1995

Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid are, to say the least, intrepid. I've several
times been mesmerized by Jeffrey's slides of Tibet, Afghanistan, and various
Asian hinterlands where he has hitched rides on donkeys or even less
convenient modes of transport. Modest, a respectful and engaged listener,
Jeffrey always seems to be invited to a meal and to find his way to the
cook's side at the crucial moment. Frequently he is joined by Naomi, his
wife, a former lawyer who gave in to her wanderlust and helped gather the
experiences and recipes for Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas, which
will be published this month by Morrow.

Flatbreads are literally the base of the peasant dishes that fill their
wonderful new book, both a travelogue and a cookbook that shows a vanishing
cuisine and the life that went with it. This recipe for pita bread is about
twice or three times as long as the other recipes in the book, which are for
rustic spreads and sauces and stews.

Pita deserves the space, because it's a universal in the food they document,
and once mastered it's easy. At Fetzer Vineyard's Eden-like organic vegetable
and flower garden, in the Sonoma Valley, I once helped Jeffrey roll out
dozens and dozens of whole-wheat pitas for over a hundred cooks and farmers
from all over the country who had gathered to discuss sustainable
agriculture. When I first offered to help, Jeffrey shrewdly implied that I
would be better off manning the griddle: the light but firm touch required
for each round didn't come quickly to just anybody, he warned.

His management strategy worked. Naturally, I wasn't going to leave the
makeshift table of plywood on sawhorses until I could roll the eight-inch
breads so that they required only a sprinkling of flour (I began by dousing
the carefully risen dough with flour, which will guarantee a leaden result,
leading Jeffrey to kindly offer me another task) and seemed to glide off the
little wooden dowel we were using as a rolling pin.

I made bread for two hours. And loved snitching fresh-baked ones off the
griddle--I didn't even need any sauce, made from red peppers picked that
afternoon, so satisfyingly steamy and nutty were the lightly puffed rounds.
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PITA

From Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (William Morrow
& CO . ;1995. $30.00 hardcover)

khubz, baladi - Eastern Mediterranean

Pita, commonly referred to in Arabic as khubz ("bread"), is the most widely
available bread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Unfortunately, in these
days of mass production, even there the khubz that makes its way to
restaurant tables is often the same ubiquitous too-quick-to-go-stale white
pita served in restaurants in North America This is not true in Egypt,
however, where the local pita--called loalarli--is made from 100 percent
whole wheat flour and freshly baked several times a day in neighborhood
bakeries. To a visitor, bread can seem unbelievably cheap, because it is
subsidized by the government. The quality of the baladi, as well as its
price, is strictly controlled by the government; bread is an important
political issue, just as it is in many other places all around the world.

As for homemade pita, cast away any thought of those white cardboard like
supermarket breads. Fresh homemade whole wheat pits, or those made with half
white, half whole wheat, are quick and delicious. They are most easily made
on quarry tiles or baking sheets in the oven, but they can also be baked on a
griddle or in a cast iron skillet on the stove.


2 teaspoons dry yeast
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

5 to 6 cups hard whole wheat flour, or 3 cups each hard whole wheat flour and
hard unbleached white flour, or unbleached all purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil


You will need a large bread bowl, unglazed quarry tiles (see page 20) to fit
on a rack in your oven or several baking sheets, or a cast iron or other
heavy griddle or skillet at least 9 inches in diameter, and a rolling pin.

In a large bread bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Stir to
dissolve. Stir in 3 cups flour, a cup at a time, and then stir 100 times,
about 1 minute, in the same direction to activate the gluten. Let this sponge
rest for at least 10 minutes, or as long as 2 hours.

Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and stir in the olive oil. Mix well. Add
more flour, a cup at a time, until the dough is too stiff to stir. Turn it
out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, until
smooth and elastic. Rinse out the bowl, dry, and lightly oil. Return the
dough to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until at least
doubled in size, approximately 1 1/2 hours. (The dough can be made ahead to
this point and stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.

To save the dough in the refrigerator for baking later, gently punch it down.
Wrap it in a plastic bag that is at least three times as large as the dough,
and secure it just at the opening of the bag; this will give the dough room
to expand while it is in the refrigerator. Then, from day to day, simply cut
off the amount of dough you need and keep the rest in the refrigerator. After
a few days, the dough will smell increasingly fermented, but the fermentation
actually improves the taste of the bread, especially if baked on quarry
tiles. The dough should always be brought to room temperature before baking.)

If baking the breads: Place unglazed quarry tiles, or two small baking
sheets, on the bottom rack of your oven, leaving a 1-inch gap all around
between the tiles or sheets and the oven walls to allow heat to circulate.
Preheat the oven to 450 F.

Gently punch down the dough. Divide the dough in half, then set half aside,
covered, while you work with the rest. Divide the other half into 8 equal
pieces and flatten each piece with lightly floured hands. Roll out each piece
to a circle 8 to 9 inches in diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Keep the
rolled-out breads covered until ready to bake, but do not stack.

Place 2 breads, or more if your oven is large enough, on the quarry tiles or
baking sheets, and bake for 2 to 3 minutes, or until each bread has gone into
a full "balloon." If there are seams or dry bits of dough, or for a variety
of other reasons--e.g., your quarry tiles are not sufficiently preheated--the
breads may not balloon properly. But don't worry, they will still taste
great. The more you bake pitas, the more you will become familiar with all
the little tricks and possible pitfalls, and your breads will more
consistently balloon. Wrap the baked breads together in a large kitchen towel
to keep them warm and soft while you bake the remaining rolled out breads.
Then repeat with the rest of the dough.

To cook the pitas on top of the stove: Preheat a 9 inch or larger griddle or
cast-iron skillet over medium high heat. When hot, lightly grease the surface
of the griddle with a little oil.

Meanwhile, gently punch down the dough and divide it in half. Cover one half
and divide the other half into 8 pieces. Flatten each piece with well-floured
hands, then roll out one at a time into circles less than 1/4 inch thick and
8 to 9 inches in diameter.

Gently put one bread onto the griddle. Cook for 15 to 20 seconds, then gently
turn over. Cook for about 1 minute, until big bubbles begin to appear. Turn
the bread again to the first side, and cook until the bread balloons fully.
To help the process along, you can press gently with a towel on those areas
where bubbles have already formed, trying to push the air bubble into areas
that are still flat. (This is a technique that will quickly improve with
practice). The breads should take no more than 3 minutes to cook, and,
likewise, they shouldn't cook so fast that they begin to burn; adjust the
heat until you find a workable temperature. Wrap the cooked breads in a large
kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft while you cook and roll out the rest
of the dough in the same way. There is no need to oil the griddle between
each bread, but after 4 or 5 breads, you might want to lightly oil the
surface again.

Alternatives: You can, of course, make smaller breads by dividing the dough
into smaller pieces. The rolling out and cooking method and times remain the
same. Children particularly love smaller pocket breads.

Makes approximately 16 pocket breads, 8 to 9 inches in diameter.

Serve with any Central Asian or western Asian meal. Always have stacks of
fresh pita on the mezze table (see page 203), whole or cut in wedges, and
wrapped to keep soft and warm.
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