Mastering Greek Pita Bread | Christine Cushing

[Music] hi I'm Christine Cushing and welcome to another helping of my favorite foods today I'm taking you back to my birth country Greece and we're gonna make a tender delicious soft PITA Greek style that means let's go I am making a sponge method so first thing is sugars going in it's just about a half a teaspoon just to get the east going a little bit of warm water plain yogurt so after the yogurt goes in now I'm going to add the flour I love adding a combination of whole wheat and white flour both bread varieties bread just has a higher protein so it'll give you a fluffier PITA the white flour always using unbleached I'm not gonna put it all in just because I want it to be a certain texture last but certainly not least in the sponge I'm adding yeast only if I have instant yeast can I add it this way dry ok if I don't have instant yeast I'm gonna put it in with the water and let it foam and then add it now we stir so all I want to do here is stir that until it starts to get a bit I would say it resists a little bit that should take about a minute or so so now all I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna wrap it in some plastic so that it seals and I'll let it sit in a warm place in my kitchen for about 40 minutes or so until it doubles in bulk 40 minutes later this is what I'm looking for it's gonna start foaming a little bit now I can add the rest of my ingredients and continue my dough first thing I'm gonna do is sprinkle it with the salt and always separating the salt in the east olive oil this is by the way not going to be that Paulo pizza that has a big sort of concave or a big hole in the center that you can fill things can be soft tender and pliable and oh it's gonna be so good now I want to add the flour but I don't want to add the whole thing because I don't know what's happening in the humidity of my room so I add a little bit stir and then if it needs more then I'll keep adding now I'm gonna turn it on to my wooden board and continue to knead by hand making sure that I get every little drawing office because that's gonna alter the texture still a little sticky so I'm gonna add a little bit more flour what makes this Greek style PITA more tender than let's say Middle Eastern style pita it's the yogurt it's the olive oil so the gluten in the flour is making it nice and dense and stretchy but then the yogurt and the olive will come in and break those strands so what happens it becomes a more tender and delicate dough that's why I like using the bread flour because you get this kind of push and pull a bit of softness and then you still want a little bit of stretch right did I mention this was a full body workout I love it though by the way you can make this all in a stand mixer with a hook the dough hook but I'm going old-school see it's still tearing a bit so I know it's not fully needed see how it's not coming together so [Music] [Music] [Music] let's see I think we're just about there it's gotta be smooth and just slightly tender when you touch it so that it just feels a bit sticky I think that's right on the money look at that that is one beautiful piece of dough now that it's needed I want to let it rest again so I'm gonna take a bowl always a little bit of oil in it and this should take about an hour and a half until it's doubled in bulk want to make sure it's fully covered and then we get to make some beef does yeah that's what we're looking for so that was an hour and a half and this is gonna make eight eight inch pitas so I'm gonna cut them into wedges so that they're evenly sized and there's a bit of olive oil on here that's okay and then I flattened one at a time dusting with a little bit of flour [Music] [Music] now what I want to do after I roll them all out to about 8 inches they're going to be pretty thin I'm gonna let them rest for another 10 or 15 minutes just so they start to soften a bit then we're going to pan fry them in a dry pan now it's time to fry them so what I've done is remove the excess flour off the board and I'm just gonna take a little brush with some olive oil and I brush one side of the pizza look how beautiful that looks like this my pan is now preheating this is truly gonna take me back to being a little kid in Athens the first time I went back I was 7 but I do remember it and that soft fluffy pita on the street little souvlaki in there take a bite Oh crazy good this is that PITA look at the bubbles coming up now I want to peek a little bit because I want to make sure that my heat is right right on the money pan bread which this is is pretty much like pancakes you get into a rhythm the heats right on and then you you've got it going but you just want to make sure that it's not too hot it's not too cold it's just right so let me see what's happening here so press down a bit - can you tell someone's excited about the pita look how beautiful they are I want to show you look at this do you see how tender these are unbelievable of course I have to taste one for you and I got to do it with tzatziki that's the real Greek way that's it I'm there the tenderness it's just so beautiful with this amazing tzatziki also I want to know when you're gonna have your pizza making station because it's such a cool thing thank you for joining me on my favorite foods be sure to subscribe and let me know what you want me to cook for you see you OPA

Channel: MyFavouriteFoods ChristineCushing

Views: 64,201

Keywords: Christine Cushing, Mastering Greek Pita Bread | Christine Cushing, greek pita bread, pita for souvlaki, Greek style pita, flatbread, Greek Pita Bread | Akis Petretzikis, best Greek pita, Greek yogurt flatbread: without yeast and ready in a pan!, my favourite foods, The BEST Greek Pita Flatbread:No pocket and SO easy!, Greek pita bread, pita bread, Pita Bread - How to Make Pita Bread at Home - Grilled Flatbread, pita bread recipe, GreekFood, Flatbreads | Basics with Babish

Id: O2UjZaFsjIc

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 04 2018