I Need a Gyro

I pulled a large leg of lamb out of the freezer for Easter dinner. Of course, there was quite a bit left over. Making gyros is probably an obvious, though tasty, way to use some of it up. The above photo is of a gyro made from my lamb leg. But this post isn’t really about gyros.

It’s about sour dough pita bread.

While it’s easy to find many recipes for all the components of a gyro, including home-baked pitas, sour dough pitas using a starter are surprisingly rare. I did find discussions on sites like “The Fresh Loaf” (a bread baker’s forum) that suggested ratios for converting recipes. However, I wasn’t in the mood to dust off my math skills. If a recipe where someone had already done all the hard work wasn’t readily available, I may as well tinker with one already in my possession, without making things too complicated.

The pita recipe I altered comes from the cookbook and 1990s PBS series, Baking with Julia. The sour dough starter I’ve been using lately is in Peter Reinhart’s book Artisan Bread Every Day. These particular recipes do happen to be available online, and here are the links. I’m not going to provide the detailed instructions for the mother starter or pitas here, since they are copyrighted material that happens to be easily available.

Pita recipe

http://www.recipelink.com/msgbrd/board_2/2008/MAY/22374.html

Mother starter from Peter Reinhart

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11food-recipe3.html?_r=0

This is my sour dough pita formula:

2 ¼ c. Room-temp Water

½ tsp. Yeast (optional)

½ c. Mother Starter

2 c. Whole Wheat Flour

1 tbsp. Salt

1 tbsp. Olive Oil

2 ½ - 3 ½ c. AP Flour

I mostly followed the directions from BwJ. My mother starter is whole wheat and was incorporated into the sponge. I cut the yeast down to half its amount and used it because my starter was almost due to be refreshed. If you use the yeast, dissolve it in the water first, then stir in the starter. You will want to make sure the starter and water are thoroughly blended before adding the rest of the whole wheat flour. I let my sponge develop for about 2 hours since it had a nicely pungent starter added to it.

Though the pita recipe didn’t mention the use of a stand mixer, I did use mine for kneading after the first 2 ½ c. of AP flour was added. It’s actually a standard practice of mine to do most of the mixing by hand, because I’m not crazy about cleaning bread dough out of the paddle attachment. The kneading time should still be 8-10 minutes, and it’s during the kneading that I observe my dough and add more flour, ¼ c. at a time, if needed. Since pitas are flat bread you will want to be careful not to add too much flour, particularly if you want the pockets. It’s steam power that causes pitas to puff when baked. Dough with a higher moisture content will feel sticky, and some of it will cling to your finger when touched. BwJ says pita dough will be moderately firm and have a slight sheen. I put my finished dough in the refrigerator overnight and baked the pitas the next day.

BwJ gives instructions for both oven and griddle baking. I baked mine in the oven, but next time I might try the griddle. Even though my pitas were from the same dough, they didn’t all puff. Four to five, out of the sixteen, developed nice big pockets. With griddle baking, you have the opportunity to manipulate the air pockets. With or without pockets, the bread still made tasty gyros. The pocketless breads, folded over the contents, were just messier to eat.

A note on starters: For those who haven’t made a mother starter like the one by Peter Reinhart, it has a consistency like bread dough. When first completed or refreshed, it’s sticky. But after being in the refrigerator a few days, it firms up a good bit, especially if made with whole wheat flour. Mixing it into the liquid before adding the flour makes it easier to fully incorporate the starter into your bread dough. I’m not a bread making snob or old school purist, so there is no judgment here if you use a starter made from commercial yeast. Those types of starters often have a much higher moisture content and pourable consistency, similar to pancake batter. So you have 3 options for adjustment – cut more of the water, or increase some of the flour in the sponge; be prepared to add more flour at the end. Also, the addition of yeast is necessary with that kind of starter. Commercial yeast, especially instant, is highly active at first, but as your starter ages, the critters pretty much poop out. You’ll still get a lovely tangy flavor by using your starter, just not much leavening action.

The Project Queen