Majida Rashid
“If it is bread that you seek, you will have bread. If it is the soul you seek, you will find the soul. If you understand this secret, you know you are that which you seek.”
— Rumi
And for this month of my birth, I’m seeking bread!
Since January I had been thinking of sharing a bread recipe with Michiganders. The aroma of bread being baked is a great treat in freezing weather. While the hope of better weather warms our heart and brightens our eyes in April, the fragrance of baking bread is still soothing.
Bread baking goes back 10,000 years. Egyptians are considered the pioneers in baking. They used yeast as early as 2600 BC. Bread was baked in Roman households, but according to the Roman philosopher, Pliny the Elder, the Greek bakers arrived in Rome as early as the 2nd century BC. They even used stale but absorbent bread to serve the food on.
Native Americans, it is believed, have consumed cornbread. Christopher Columbus, in late the 15th century, brought sour dough starter to America.
As a child I thought bread was only a tortilla-like round roti made of whole-wheat flour that mother mixed with water and salt. Later a Yugoslavian neighbor in Uganda taught me to bake a baguette like loaf of bread.
I love making bread but a small fact dissuaded me for a while. I have lived in numerous countries outside the U.S. I had to store flour in the fridge because keeping it outside always resulted in crawling bugs in the flour. I never understood where they came from and how they entered a sealed bag. I was happy when in Ann Arbor, Mich., that nothing happened to the flour in the pantry. I thought it was because of cold weather. I have lived on the island of Bahrain where our air conditioner was on seven months of the year if not more and flour stored outside the fridge got bugs quickly. Now I live in Houston, which is warm most of the year. Flour even stored in the pantry remains bugs free almost forever.
I think, in addition to having additives, the flour sold in supermarkets is so processed that even bugs don’t find it appealing. Imagine how consuming it affects us. I’m going to conduct a bugs experiment with the whole-wheat roti flour sold in Middle Eastern or Indian and Pakistani stores. Stay tuned.
While nothing matches the deliciousness of warm roti with melted butter, I find pita bread very versatile.
Pita Bread
Ingredients
1 cup lukewarm water
1 packet yeast – 1/4 oz
11/2 teaspoons sugar
3 cups sifted whole-wheat flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Sprinkle the yeast over warm water.
Add the sugar, stir and leave aside for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix together the sifted flour and salt in an electric kneader.
After 15 minutes add the olive oil.
Pour in the yeast water and knead for seven minutes. The dough should be smooth.
Oil another bowl and transfer that dough into that bowl.
Cover the bowl with a tight lid and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, lightly dust the working surface with flour.
Remove the dough from the fridge and transfer it onto the working surface.
Using a sharp knife divide the dough into six equal pieces.
Roll each piece into a sphere.
Cover and let stand for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 500°F.
Flatten out each sphere into a round disk.*
Line a flat baking tray with a parchment paper.
Place two on each tray and bake for 5 minutes until all are baked.
Cool and cut a slice off to open the pita.
Put in the filling of your desire.
2-3 Servings.
*Caution. Flattening the dough too thin will prevent it from rising.
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Foodie Majida Rashid lives in Texas. Food and cooking are her passion. Her presentation about her love of food can be viewed on USA Today’s network: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0xi566VSPo – We Spread Love Through Food. @Frontiers_Of_ Flavor. Her philosophical writing can be read at apakistaniwomansjourney.wordpress.com.
