Yay!! I finally got my pitabread pockets to work really well! Right texture, taste, flexibility but sturdiness. I love stuffed pitabread sandwiches, and that used to be one of my beloved meals growing up--particularly my mom used to make it with ground beef, tomatos and cucumbers, and then you'd put ranch dressing on it all...Finding whole wheat pitabread pockets in the US is not so hard, but here... impossible! I've tried making them a few times, but the first two didn't quite get the right texture to have them sturdy enough to hold fillings, but not too thick, etc..
This time I'm very pleased with the results-- still was a very basic dough with yeast, sugar, water, salt, olive oil and lots of whole wheat flour, and *well kneaded* (with my glorious kitchenaid who did all the work). I think that stretchiness was the key to make sure the pockets were sturdy. After letting teh dough rise once, rolled that out to a log and cut equal sized portions, and each ball of the dough I'd roll almost tortilla-thin, make sure it was well-floured, then lay-over a second same-size round, sealing the edges with some water. Baking them (at 200 C) did just the right thing, puffing them up slightly getting golden on the faces, and the steam enclosed in the pocket seemed to get the insides a nice texture for holding juicy-filling contents. Sliced in half, then you've got 2 great pockets!
Very time-consuming to make them, but in retrospect it was worth it... I made 16 pockets in that batch and 'twas quite a meal. I make a variation of the one growing up--here they have this great tofu product which is made to look (and practically taste) like ground beef, and sauteed with onions, tomatoes, zucchini, and some spicy salsa-ranch dressing, it's darn good!
