LIVE TO COOK

“Pita Pockets”.

I first tasted Pita Pockets or pita bread sandwich in a theme park. It was my first vacation in US. After getting bored of cheese pizzas, we thought of eating something different. Veggie Pita Pocket was the only other non meat option available for us.

Since Pita bread was almost similar to our Roti and Naan, I liked the taste. Even though I never tried to make it at home, I caught up on making my own Pita breads when I established my Sourdough Starter. As bread consumption was very less in our house, I wanted to use my sourdough starter in recipes that can easily adopt to our lifestyle. Next to Naan, it was Pita bread that served the need.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Whole wheat flour
3/4 - 1 Cup Warm water
1/2 Cup Active Sourdough starter
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt

To serve the sandwich:

1/2 cup Labneh or Labni
Stuffed onion rolls for each pita pocket

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients other than water.
2. Knead into a soft and elastic dough using 2 Tbsp water at a time.
3. Grease a large bowl and put the ball of dough.
4. Cover and allow to double in volume.
5. Punch down and take a lemon sized ball of dough.
6. Roll in to 6 inch discs with a thickness of two tortillas.
7. Cover with a damp cheese cloth and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
8. Heat a cast iron griddle and place a rolled pita.
9. Allow to cook on one side and until the dough puffs up.

10. Turn and cook the other side until brown spots appear.
11. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Do not stack pita breads. Cool each one separately. This will help us to get the pocket shape when the pita is cut into half. Stacking of pita bread when warm will create moisture in between layers and won’t pull apart when cut.

12. Cut the pita in half and pull apart to get the pocket shape.
11. Spread a tablespoon of Labneh inside the pocket.
12. Place one stuffed onion roll inside and serve warm. We can use tomatoes, lettuce along with the stuffed roll too.

The recipe was awesome and the homemade Labneh enriched the taste. It is a lunch box and Picnic friendly recipe for sure. This is my entry for the event A.W.E.D - Middle eastern cuisine hosted by Siri.

All of us who write food blogs cannot deny a fact that cooking a dish is easier than writing a post about the dish. Those days when we are brimming with energy, words pour and ease the flow of writing. The write up will be satisfactory. On other not so energetic days, we feel the lack of such flow.

“I know I can cook. But am I able to write about it aptly?” is one among the doubts that stops newbies like me to enter the food blog world. But yet another undeniable fact is, we will find some or the other reason for writing a post, during the course of blogging.

Similar to this, we all agree upon a thing that, a good routine, started for fun will turn into addiction that we find no reason to stop it.

Well! Coming to the point, I started the “Sourdough Starter” with Rice flour and was waiting for a reason to write about it. As most of my recent posts are about Sourdough starter and Idly, I was little hesitant to write about the “Rice Starter”. But when sharmi of Neivedyam announced “Rice” as the ingredient for the event Jihva For Ingredients, I couldn’t resist writing about it.

So this is it! My entry for this month’s JFI is “Rice Starter“.

Why I established a rice starter? During my trial and error process of Bread baking, I came to know about celiac disease. I decided that some day I will explore “Gluten Free Baking” and create some recipes that will help those in need. As the first step towards that decision, I established the Rice starter.

Ingredients:

1 Cup rice flour
1 cup water

Method:

1. Mix the flour and the water in a non metallic bowl.
2. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and keep in a warm, dry place.
3. Keep undisturbed until few bubbles appear on the surface of the batter which tells the start of the fermentation process.
4. when the flour mixture started fermenting, remove half cup from the mixture and mix in 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup water
5. Continue the process for every 6 - 8 hours depending upon the time it takes to ferment again.
6. After 3 days of this process the starter will be ready and we can store it in the fridge.

Coffee from the spice cafe asked me why we remove 1/2 cup of the mixture and add the same amount of flour and water, while we establish a sourdough starter?

A starter gets the ability to raise the dough or batter, through aging. An aged starter means, it is well fermented and there are lots of living cultures in it which help the leavening process. We call the process of adding and removing of flour, water mixture as “Feeding”. To make a stater aged, we have to feed it frequently.

While learning to bake with gluten free flours, I thought of using the starter in recipes that I am confident about and that would never fail me. The wonder recipe is Idly . I prepared “Sago Idly” with the rice starter.

Ingredients:

1 cup Active Rice starter
1 cup Tapioca Pearls (Javvarisi, sago, sabudhana)
1/2 cup warm water
2-3 green chillies, chopped
5-6 Curry leaves, chopped
3 teaspoons Salt

Method:

1. Mix the Starter, Tapioca Pearls and the half cup water.
2. Allow to ferment for 3 hours or doubled in volume (The time depends upon the age of the starter. For example, a year old starter takes less time than few days old starter)
3. Add the Green chilli, Curry leaves and Salt. Mix well.
4. Spoon to Greased Idly plates
5. Steam for 10 minutes. Allow to cool for few minutes and Serve.

 

This is yet another “No dal, No Grind” idly. I have tried Rice flakes, Sooji, Ragi idly with the rice starter and all of them turned out good. Establishing the starter is the time consuming task. But once we have the starter in hand, lots of options open up like this.

I thank Sharmi for giving me the opportunity to write about my Rice Starter. Please click the logo for more details about the JFI event hosted by her.