Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Eastern Mediterranean Pizzas - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 38th Installment.  The recipe is Eastern Mediterranean Pizzas.
Very easy recipe to follow, and delicious.  I made the sponge in the morning, and then mixed up the dough in the late afternoon, followed by making the pizzas in the evening, so the timing worked out well for a weekend day when I was puttering around the house and garden.  It really didn't take much attention at all.  I left the dough slightly sticky, since I didn't want it to dry out.

I think I loaded on a little more filling than the recipe called for, but it was so yummy, and because I used a pound of lamb, technically I had a quadruple recipe, so I had plenty to spare. This pita dough was easy.   I made a full recipe of the dough, and used half for pizza and half for pita which I baked on my baking stone.  A few of the pitas puffed up really well, although most of them did not - I'd still like to figure out the secret of getting pita bread to puff up reliably.  I guess the pizzas don't puff so much because of the filling, or maybe because they are baked on a baking sheet instead of the hot baking stone. 

I think this is more like a side bread course (kind of like a naan bread with onions) or an appetizer, rather than a true main dish pizza, which would have more filling for each crust.  I'd like to try this with different fillings - looking forward to seeing what the creative types in the TWD baking group did with this.

4 comments:

  1. For some reason this recipe did not appeal to me. I skipped this one. It would be fun to make pitas though. Are the pitas as dry as store bought ones?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I would say the pitas are definitely as dry as store bought ones...there's very little in them to keep them moist.

      Delete
  2. My guess on the puff factor: depends on how much air is left in the dough before you place it on the stone. Ie, if you knead it a lot, and roll it out with a rolling pin rather than gently stretching with your fingertips, you're going to get fewer air pockets and therefore fewer bubbles. I'll have to do more "research" though... nice looking pizzas!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The dough was easy and so tasty. I think any number of toppings would be good with it. I used a baking sheets for my pizzas and they didn't puff up all that much. But I bet if I'd have put it on the hot pizza stone, it would have puffed up.

    ReplyDelete