Pita bread or homemade Arab bread with and without oven

Arab bread also known as pita is a type of flat bread in a circular shape, originating from the east but widely recognized in all parts of the world. This bread is often used a lot to prepare sandwiches, to eat sauces like hummus, and also typical dishes like kebabs.

Depending on the way in which we knead we are going to obtain a different bread, we can prepare an inflated and crumbless bread ideal for sandwich, but we can also prepare an Arab bread with a little more crumb (not inflated).

Ingredients

for 12 Arab breads

• 20g. fresh yeast

• 300g. Water

• 500g. flour 000

• 3 tbsp. olive oil

• 2 tsp. Salt

• 1 tbsp. polenta (optional)

Step-by-step preparation of Arabic bread

Place 300 grams of warm water in a bowl or container. It is important that it is warm and not hot.

Crumble the yeast by hand, incorporating it into the warm water. Stir until the yeast is completely dissolved in the water. Leave to sit for 10 minutes.

In another container or large bowl we place the half kilo of flour 000 (the one that we use to prepare any bread). Hollow out the flour in the middle and place the salt around it (outside the hole). In this step I added a tablespoon of polenta. The Arabic bread does not have polenta, I know and therefore they can skip this part, I really like the texture it gives the bread.

Add the warm water with the dissolved yeast that we had resting in the flour hole. Now we are going to mix everything, I recommend doing it with your hands but you could do it with a spoon. We must mix it until a kind of dough is formed but not completely smooth, only until the water absorbs the flour.

Add 6 tablespoons of olive oil and mix again with your hands until all the dough is finished. Once it is well joined, we remove it from the bowl and knead it for 7 minutes. It is not necessary to knead more than that time (they can do it if they want) but it is important that we do it for at least 7 minutes.

Once a very smooth dough is obtained, we put it back in the bowl, covering it with plastic wrap, and let it rise for approximately 1 hour until it doubles in size.

Put the dough back on the counter with a little flour. Knead for a minute and cut the amount we want to prepare each Arab bread, making a chorizo ​​with the dough and cutting into pieces with a knife. If they want them exactly the same, they must be weighed, in my case I assemble them by eye and they are quite similar. I got 12 large loaves of this kilo of flour.

Now comes the important part of this recipe for Arabic bread: we will stretch each piece of dough and fold it inward several times until we obtain a roll. Then we will knead these buns gently by hand against the counter, crushing the dough a little. I recommend that you watch the video to understand this point since it is difficult to explain it in words, and it is the most important tip for the bread to turn out as we want. Let the buns sit for another 15 minutes.

Knead the buns with a rolling pin until you reach the desired size. It is important that they do not mistreat the dough, that they use flour on the counter, that they do not bend it, the key is to be patient and knead with the stick until you reach the right size.

If they want a low-dough Arab bread, they must make it very fine, that way they will inflate when cooked. If instead they want an Arab bread with a little dough (as for a sandwich), they should leave it a little thicker.

Place the discs of dough in a clean source or with a little flour and cook in a well preheated oven previously at 200º. We must cook them for 7 to 9 minutes: the Arab bread is white, if they wait until it is toasted they will be taken apart.

This Arab bread can be cooked in a non-stick frying pan, it is not necessary to put flour or oil, we place the stretched dough in the frying pan over medium heat and cook for 4 minutes per side.