Pita bread is unleavened thin bread. It is customary to call this dish Armenian, but it is quite popular not only in Armenia. This dish is considered indispensable in the preparation of many goodies, and with its help you can successfully diversify the daily menu. First, a little history.
The classic recipe for making pita bread is in a special clay oven called tandoor. The stove is buried in the ground and resembles a huge pot made of clay. A fire is fired inside the furnace, after the wood has burned out, and soot has been removed from the walls of the tandoor, bread is directly stuck on them. As the cakes are cooked, they are taken out of the oven using a special hook.
At home, you can cook something similar, just baking in the oven or even in a pan. The most important thing is to choose the right recipe for pita bread.
Armenian lavash is characterized by the fact that it has almost no crumb. Flour for its preparation is taken only 1 or 2 grades. A certain amount of it is kneaded in slightly salted water, the leaven is poured into the resulting dough, with which the dough roams for about two hours. After this, the resulting composition must be divided into small parts of equal size, rolled out and baked.
This article will describe only a few recipes from the whole variety of cooking options for Armenian bread. The first recipe for pita bread contains whey. So, you need to take two glasses of flour, 250 grams each, whey or milk - also 250 grams, vegetable oil in the amount of one tablespoon and salt. It is better to sift the flour before use, then pour a little warmed up whey into it, add oil and salt. The dough after kneading should be very elastic and soft. After he should be allowed to stand a little. Then roll the cakes and fry them without adding oil. The readiness of bread can be determined by the appearance of brown spots. Drying of the product should be avoided. The cake should ideally be so soft that it can then be wrapped in the filling. To preserve this softness, someone can put baking in a bag, someone sprinkles water from a spray bottle. It was a way that describes how to make pita bread in a pan.
There is also a method of preparing this dish in the oven. This will require about 3 cups of flour, warm water in the amount of a quarter cup, two teaspoons of yeast, three tablespoons of vegetable oil, and sugar and salt to taste. Salt and sugar also dissolve in warm water. After that, it is necessary to make a small depression in the flour and pour in water with yeast and oil. Mix the dough very carefully and for the next 10 minutes to engage in kneading. In order to make the pita bread tasty, before baking the dough, you need to hold it under cling film for an hour and a half. The size of the baked pita bread according to this recipe can be the size of a baking sheet of the oven. In order for the baking to be carried out evenly, there should be no swelling, for this purpose it is recommended to pierce the pita bread with a fork in several places. On the question of how to cook pita bread correctly, the most important thing is not to overexpose it in a hot oven, otherwise it will become very dry, so even sprinkling does not help.
The described options for baking Armenian bread are far from all. Recipes for pita bread are diverse. In many European countries, this dish is becoming increasingly popular. You can wrap various snacks in it: vegetables, pastes, fish. It will look beautiful in the form of sliced original rolls. You can also cook something like a multi-layer pie with mushrooms, meat or also vegetables. In addition, Armenian pita bread can be used in the process of making desserts, if stuffed with cottage cheese or chocolate.
Experiment, come up with your recipe for making pita bread! Enjoy your meal!