Pita - bread and food packaging. Cooking methods, calorie content and vitamin and mineral composition. Benefits and harms when consumed, recipes for delicious dishes. The popularity of unusual tortillas.
Pita is unleavened bread in the form of a round cake, inside of which is a cavity formed due to the accumulation of water vapor. It is baked from wheat or wallpaper flour. Used as a container for the main course - the filling is placed in a "pocket" by cutting the crust with a knife. Diameter - 15-20 cm, thickness - 2-4 cm, taste - absolutely neutral. Pita is extremely popular in the Mediterranean countries and the Middle East, Mexico and Chile. According to a similar recipe, chapatis are baked in India and snaps in Kazakhstan. An analogue can be considered Georgian lavash and Iraqi lava, but there is no characteristic cavity in the baked goods.
Peculiarities of making pita
There are many recipes for baking tortillas. The dough is kneaded with and without yeast, baked in the oven, in a frying pan or in a slow cooker. Let's look at the most popular ways to make pita:
- Bedouin recipe … Mix 2 cups of any sifted flour, better coarse grinding, with 1 tsp. salt and 4 tbsp. l. vegetable oil, rub with your fingers and knead the dough, constantly adding water. The mixture should remain sticky, but acquire an elastic consistency. Leave to stand under a towel in a warm place for 10 minutes, while the oven is heated to 200 ° C and a thin cake is rolled out with a rolling pin. Fry on all sides for 30 seconds without oil in a pan, then spread on a wire rack over the fire until the crust rises. As soon as air bubbles appear, remove the baked goods.
- Arabic pita … Mix dry 500 g of flour (1 part wheat and 2 wallpaper), 1, 5 tsp each. salt and dry fast yeast, pour in 50 ml of sunflower oil and 300 ml of warm water, mix. The dough should be soft, elastic and not stick to your hands. Knead long enough, at least 10 minutes, to achieve complete homogeneity. (Arab women first knead the elastic mass on the table, then throw it from hand to hand and knead it again on a horizontal surface). The kneading is laid out in a bowl and tightened with cling film, put in heat for 1 hour for fermentation, then kneaded and left again for 2 hours until it triples in volume. Divide the dough into equal parts, form small balls, press and leave on a horizontal surface for 10-17 minutes, without covering, sprinkle with flour. The oven together with the baking sheet is heated to 220 ° C. Each workpiece is rolled out to a thickness of 0.5 cm with a rolling pin, boned in flour. Pull the sheet out of the oven, quickly lay out the blanks, bake for 7 minutes. It should be laid out at intervals, as when cooking, the pita rises strongly and becomes like hemispheres. The top surface of the finished cakes is covered with a golden brown crust. After being removed from the oven, the top falls off a little.
- Butter pita … The kneading is carried out as in the previous recipe, but additionally 1 tsp is introduced. sugar and 2 tbsp. l. olive oil. Bake on a hot baking sheet at a temperature of 260 ° C. Take out as soon as the cake takes the shape of a ball, no longer than 6-7 minutes. The surface should remain light.
- Tortilla with yeast on the stove … To cook pita like pancakes in a frying pan, it is best to knead the dough. Dissolve yeast with sugar in warm water - 1 tsp each. by 50 ml, and only then they are introduced into flour and olive oil is added. Knead as already described. Smooth elastic dough, which does not stick to hands, is left to come up, crumpled, and again left to increase in volume. Roll out thick cakes - 0.7 cm. Preheat a thick-walled cast-iron pan, grease it with olive oil with a brush, bake the blanks on both sides until bubbles appear.
If you do not plan to eat everything at once, bread products made without oil can be frozen. Before use, they are allowed to stand at room temperature for a while and then briefly placed in a steam bath.
Composition and calorie content of pita
The nutritional value of tortillas, the dough for which is kneaded with yeast, is higher than that of ordinary wheat bread, even if there is no golden brown crust on the surface.
The calorie content of pita is 262 kcal per 100 g, of which:
- Proteins - 8.6 g;
- Fat - 3.3 g;
- Carbohydrates - 57 g;
- Dietary fiber - 2.6 g;
- Water - 37.8 g;
- Ash - 1.7 g.
Vitamins per 100 g:
- Vitamin B1, thiamine - 0.11 mg;
- Vitamin B2, riboflavin - 0.03 mg;
- Vitamin B4, choline - 37.8 mg;
- Vitamin B5, pantothenic acid - 0.19 mg;
- Vitamin B6, pyridoxine - 0.1 mg;
- Vitamin B9, folate - 22.5 mcg;
- Vitamin E, alpha tocopherol - 1.1 mg;
- Vitamin PP - 2.2 mg;
- Niacin - 0.9 mg
Macronutrients per 100 g:
- Potassium, K - 93 mg;
- Calcium, Ca - 20 mg;
- Silicon, Si - 2.9 mg;
- Magnesium, Mg - 14 mg;
- Sodium, Na - 499 mg;
- Sulfur, S - 54 mg;
- Phosphorus, P - 65 mg;
- Chlorine, Cl - 824 mg.
Microelements per 100 g:
- Boron, B - 48 mcg;
- Vanadium, V - 66 mcg;
- Iron, Fe - 1.1 mg;
- Iodine, I - 3.2 mcg;
- Cobalt, Co - 1.4 μg;
- Manganese, Mn - 0.45 mg;
- Copper, Cu - 80 μg;
- Molybdenum, Mo - 10.6 μg;
- Selenium, Se - 6 μg;
- Fluorine, F - 14.5 μg;
- Chromium, Cr - 1.6 μg;
- Zinc, Zn - 0.526 mg.
Digestible carbohydrates per 100 g:
- Starch and dextrins - 48.5 g;
- Mono- and disaccharides (sugars) - 0.7 g;
- Galactose - 0.07 g;
- Glucose (dextrose) - 0.19 g;
- Maltose - 0.84 g;
- Sucrose - 0.04 g;
- Fructose - 0.27 g.
Pita contains essential (3.49 g per 100 g) and nonessential amino acids (4.42 g per 100 g).
Fatty acids per 100 g:
- Saturated - 0.2-18.7 g;
- Monounsaturated - 0.09 g;
- Polyunsaturated - 0.37 g.
Tortillas made from dough containing premium wheat flour, yeast, sugar and olive oil are tastier than unleavened ones, but they should not be introduced into the diet of those who are losing weight. They are satisfying, and it is impossible to stop, especially if they are served warm, and even with a filling that stimulates the appetite. But yeast-free baked goods made from wallpaper flour are a dietary product that can be safely substituted for bread in a diet for weight loss.
Benefits of pita
The most valuable for the body are cakes made from wallpaper flour. They retain a large amount of dietary fiber, which has an adsorbing effect.
Benefits of pita:
- Normalizes bowel function, adsorbs accumulated toxins and accelerates excretion in a natural way.
- It quickly saturates, replenishes the supply of nutrients, restores the energy reserve.
- Well absorbed, helps to gain weight.
- Suitable for a diet with diabetes.
- Reduces the amount of bad cholesterol, which stops the development of atherosclerosis, reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke, dysfunctions of the endocrine and hormonal systems.
- Accelerates intestinal motility.
- It normalizes blood pressure, prevents sharp rises and falls, maintains the tone of the body.
- Prevents fluid loss, which improves the condition of the skin and hair.
- Stimulates the production of red blood cells and prolongs the life cycle.
The beneficial properties of pita depend largely on the type of flour and the recipe used. Wallpaper flour contains more vitamins and minerals, and wheat products are more nutritious. Olive oil has anti-aging and antioxidant properties.
Unleavened bread can be added to the diet of patients recovering from debilitating diseases, its use has a minimal burden on the digestive system. The chemical composition of the cakes is rich, the body is replenished with useful substances. If this product is in the diet, exhaustion and vitamin deficiency are not threatened.
Contraindications and harm of pita
You should not try to replace regular bread with flat cakes, unleavened or yeast, if you are intolerant to gluten or gluten.
The harm of pita to the body depends on the recipe and the presence of a crust on the surface of the product. If it is rosy, and the cake was fried in oil, contraindications for use are: chronic diseases of the stomach and intestines, pancreatitis, cholecystitis, biliary dyskinesia and liver dysfunction.
Eating pita daily, both on its own and as a "package" for salad or cold meats, should avoid overeating so as not to provoke rapid weight gain.
There are no age restrictions for entering the diet. Recommendations: when treating small children, it is better to dry the cake. The pulp is more viscous than ordinary bread - the baby may choke.
Pita recipes
Since, first of all, cakes are ordinary bread, they can be used in the same way - with a bite. But it is much more interesting to use baked goods as "packaging" for various products.
Pita recipes:
- With cheese filling … Mix 100 g of cottage cheese, feta and Adyghe cheese with finely chopped green onions and parsley - no less than a bunch. Achieve a uniform consistency. According to any of the recipes, pita is baked in the form of small hemispheres. Beat the chicken eggs with a little milk. Fill the cavity of the bakery product with the cheese mixture so that the crust can be lowered. Dip the tucked bun in beaten eggs, and then fry in a pan in sunflower oil until golden brown. Serve like a hot dish.
- Dressing in arabic … Bake the cake as already described. Cut the chicken fillet into strips, fry in oil until tender, adding salt and adding pepper. Separately mix the sliced green onions, boiled eggs, dill, tomatoes, from which the skin was previously removed, dipped in boiling water. Pour hot chicken sticks and salad into a cut flat cake. For convenience, the cake is wrapped in a napkin.
- With Chiken … Turn on the grill. Chicken breasts are beaten. To make it more accurate, the meat is placed in a plastic bag - then the sauce is not sprinkled. Fried on the grill, turning, greased with olive oil. It takes only 8-10 minutes for the fillet to cook. While the meat is fried, dill and a little crushed garlic are poured into unsweetened yogurt, mixed, and left to infuse in the refrigerator. Cut the finished fillet into thin strips. The cakes are opened, greased with beetroot sauce so that the bottom is soaked, and a little hummus is poured (chickpea puree with sesame paste and olive oil), lettuce, cold cuts, a few rings of red onion and tomato slices are laid out. Wrap the cake in foil and heat it on the grill.
- Pita in Japanese … Pour 2 tsp into a saucepan. soy sauce, wasabi, vinegar, olive oil and 3 tbsp. l. mayonnaise. Cut the salmon fillet into small pieces and rub with salt and pepper. Spread the marinated pieces in the prepared sauce. After 30-45 minutes, the fish is grilled, sprinkled with olive oil, or in a pan, constantly turning, until tender. You don't need a lot of oil - salmon is very fatty, and cooking in your own juice will be tastier. The tortilla is cut, the cavity is smeared with soy sauce and wasabi paste, filled with salmon slices, sliced arugula, fleshy tomatoes and avocado puree. Fry already seasoned workpieces on a grill or a frying pan on both sides until golden brown.
- Pita for children … For kids who refuse porridge, you can cook such a dish. Boil thick millet or semolina porridge, add grated nuts and chopped raisins to it, drive in 1-2 eggs. Fill the buns with the filling and place in the oven to bake the porridge and eggs. Even the little ones do not refuse such a delicious breakfast.
Interesting facts about pita
The history of these cakes is as old as the world. Mentions can be found already in the Old Testament.
For Israelis, this product is so familiar that they do not even think about how and where it came from. But baking gained immense popularity as a dish in 1948, when the inhabitants of North Africa emigrated to the country.
European, or as they say in Israel "Ashkenazi", cuisine was not suitable for African residents. Their stomachs were not prepared to digest cutlets and dairy dishes. And national spices and ingredients, such as chickpeas or couscous, were usually wrapped in pita bread. But this is a long process, so they remembered about pita. It began to be made on an industrial basis, and street vendors quickly filled with fillings. The innovation was accepted "with a bang." In the pocket of tortillas, they began to serve not only national dishes, but also shawarma, and even an American hot dog.
In the Arab countries - Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon - flatbreads have replaced McDonald's buns: the cavity is filled with chickpea cutlets with spices, french fries and herbs. And in Egypt, they are content with more familiar recipes - they use poultry or beef liver as a filling.
Although the buns can be purchased frozen, it is best to bake your own or buy fresh ones. Reheated pita tastes like paper, albeit edible. Products made from unleavened dough can be stored for a long time in a dried state, they retain useful properties and nutritional value, but this is no longer pita, but an ordinary flat cake. Therefore, you need to eat pastries within 6-8 hours after cooking.
How to cook pita - watch the video:
Pita is indispensable for long walks, picnics, short-term hiking trips. A snack or even a full meal does not require serving. It is enough to wrap the "roll" in a napkin and refresh yourself on the go.
