A VERY VERSATILE YEASTED FLATBREAD

You don’t really need a recipe for this: all you need to do is mix flour, water, yeast and oil until it looks like a decent dough, let it proof quite a bit and then grill it.

Serve it with stews, make wraps and sandwiches with it and next time you’re having tacos, replace that flavorless store bought tortilla with this pita instead.

Here are a couple of recipes in which you can use pita bread:

BEER BATTERED FISH TACOS

CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA

I always eyeball my way through making flatbread and it always comes out great, but this time I decided to actually write down and measure whatever I’m eyeballing, so here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

This recipe yields about 12-14 vegan naan flatbreads, 20-25 taco shells.

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1

Mix the water, oil and yeast together in a bowl until the yeast has dissolved. If you are using dry yeast, wait 5-10 minutes to see if it’s still alive. If it gets foamy, it’s alive, if it doesn’t, try using another sachet.

Step 2

Add the flour and salt to the liquid mixture.

Step 3

Knead, knead, knead! Knead the dough until there are no more dry spots (until you can’t see any visible flour on the surface of the dough) – about 5-10 minutes.

Step 4

Once you’re done kneading, shape your dough into a ball and pop it in a greased/floured bowl. Let it proof at room temperature until doubled in size or overnight, in the refrigerator.

You can keep it in the fridge up to a week!

Step 5

Once proofed, flatten the dough onto an lightly floured or greased surface, cut it into how ever many relatively equal sized pieces you want – if you’re making vegan naan, then cut it into 12 pieces, if you’re making taco shells, then cut it into 20-24 pieces, etc.

Shape each piece of dough into a ball, pinching it at the bottom, as shown in the third image down below.

Optional step

Let the dough relax for 5-10 mins, covered.

Step 6

Time to roll ’em! If you’re going for a naan bread, roll it in an oval shape, if you’re making taco shells, keep them round. And for the thickness, keep them under 0.5 cm (0.6 inch).

Step 7

Time to heat your pan. Cast iron will work, non-sticks will work as well, grill pans too, literally anything!

The goal is to get your pan smoking hot so that when the raw dough touches the pan, steam immediately starts to form which fluffs up the flatbread.

Step 8

Once grilled on one side ( in about 1 minute ), flip it on the other side. Don’t be afraid to get some char onto it, char is flavor. This ain’t a pale flatbread club!

If you want to keep them soft and maleable, what I like to do is get a deep bowl or pot, lay a clean damp kitchen towel over it (this will encourage the formation of steam which will keep our bread soft). Then, once fully cooked, stack the pitas on top of each other and cover them with the towel.

Disclaimer: the char combined with steam will most likely stain your towel, so maybe don’t use the most precious towel from your kitchen.

Time to serve!

Quick tip for the naan:

Mix some olive oil, salt, minced garlic and parsley and brush it on your hot flatbread. Serve it with your favorite curry!

Click here for a one pot chicken tikka masala recipe or here for a cool taco recipe that uses this flatbread bread as taco shells!