Pita bread for falafel and hummus

After typing up my random food dribblings on food trucks, and specifically Hallava Falafel, I remembered I previously posted a recipe on falafel and hummus nearly ten years ago.  I volunteered to cook this very same thing today, but as I was making the grocery list, I noticed that my recipe depended on store-bought pita bread.  WTH?

I must rectify that omission.  The recipe I used is from Emma Christensen’s The Kitchn.  She does a fantastic job laying out the steps.  It works as follows:

• 1 C warm water
• 2 t active dry yeast
• 3 C white flour
• 2 t Kosher salt
• Spray oil like Pam or Baker’s Joy 

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and give it 3-5 minutes to get foamy.
2. Mix the flour, salt, and liquid together until it forms a dough ball. Depending on a lot of factors, you may need to add flour or water.  The dough should be slightly tacky but not stiff.  I swirled it around my KitchenAid for about a minute.
3. Spray the ball with a little Joy/Pam, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 1/2 hours at room temperature (20C).  While this was happening, I corralled all of the ingredients for falafel and hummus.

   

4. Gently pat down and divide the dough into eight blobs and gently mold them into a thick disc.  You can let them sit a little while until you’re ready.  Under no circumstances would I recommend stacking them on top of each other and watching “just a few minutes” of the 49ers/Green Bay game.  (They (pre-pitas) kind of stuck together… despite flour between.)
5. When you’re ready to cook them, roll them out into flat disc.  I went with a smaller shape (6-7″) because I wanted them to be a little thicker.  For flatbreads, this would be great, but it limits how much goodness you can stuff inside.

   

6. You can either bake them or use the skillet method.  I opted for the latter as it’s very much like making flour tortillas and I’m all about the crunch spots.   These cooked for about 30 seconds on the each side.  You know it’s ready to flip when there are a lot of bubbles.  I put the cooked ones on a rack and covered them with a clean dish towel until dinner was to be served.