Pita Za’atar Pictorial Recipe

My dear buddy Miriam Isserow  is one of the very few of my friends whose mother was good buddies with my mother.  Miriam has many talents, is incredibly smart and is also a serious cook. unlike me, she comes from a long line of serious cooks. One of the profound taste memories of my childhood was a Dobos torte that Miriam’s mother made for a 7th or 8th birthday party.  Miriam has a food blog and her latest post was about egg cooked into Pita Za’atar. you can read her post here. I am also taking advantage of the fact that my sesame allergic son is away at college.

 

I thought that it might be easier to show how to make the Pita Za’atar. Za'ataris a magical spice mix. It makes everything taste better. You can toss it on chicken or fish or throw some into salad dressing or eggs and they will all taste earthy and Middle Eastern and delicious.

 

1- Put two cups of water in a microwave and heat for a minute. If your kitchen is warm skip this step.

2- Add a teaspoon of yeast to the bowl of water.

3- Yeast needs to be fed. Sprinkle a teaspoon of flour over the yeast.

4- I added wheat germ and ground some hard winter wheat in my coffee grinder and added them to the bowl. This is optional.

5-Add a big glugg of olive oil

6- Add a tablespoon of salt

7- Start adding flour by the cup-full. Mix with a big spoon or a spatula.

8- Keep adding flour until it makes sense to mix with your hand instead of with the spatula or spoon. Basically you use your hand like a giant spatula, lifting and stretching the dough and then pushing it down with your open hand.  Add flour when mixture feels sticky.

9-When the dough is fairly smooth, cover with a tea towel. Then go away.

Your dough can rise from anywhere from 1-4 hours depending on your schedule. Yes, you can set up the dough before you go to sleep, put it in the fridge over night and bake the next day.

10- Roll out your dough. Or you can just pat out rounds.  I have a rolling pin that I love, so I use that. If you don’t have a rolling pin you can also use a wine bottle to roll out the dough.

If you want fluffy pita let it rise for about an hour before you pre heat your oven. If you haven’t the time just pre heat your oven to 400 and start rolling out your pita. If you want plain pita just bake your pita  right after the loaves are formed. If you want Pita Za’atar first dribble a small pudde of olive oil on leach loaf, then sprinkle with Za’atar and then rub the Za’atar into the loaf with  the back of a spoon.  Yes, you can use other spice mixtures Herbes De Provence is wonderful here as is black pepper and rosemary or sumac and smoked paprika.

Bake until done

Eat.