Balady Pita Bread

What can be a better start to a blog than a food-related post :D
One of the first things I discovered about myself as an expat is how much I miss the traditional food in Egypt, which wasn't the case when I was living  there. Actually I have to give it to Egypt ... the food there is friggin' amazing, may be the only materialistic thing that I actually miss :)

Balady بلدى means local ... so Balady Bread basically means the Egyptian variation to the well-known Pita bread. In case you're already curious .. here's a random image from the internet

So without any further delay ... here's the recipe ...

Ingredients

2 cups of all-purpose wheat flour. 

2 cups of whole-grain wheat flour.

1/2 cup of wheat bran.

1 tablespoon olive oil.

1 teaspoon sugar.

1 teaspoon salt.

1 pack baking yeast.

warm water.

Tools

- A deep bowl.

- A cup.

- A hand mixer.

- An oven (obviously :D )

- Baking sheets.

- A baking tray.

Steps

1.  In the bowl, dissolve the sugar into one cup of water, stir until well-mixed then add the yeast.

2. Leave the water-yeast-sugar for 10 minutes. The mixture should similar to this

3. Add two cups of all-purpose wheat flour to the mixture.

4. Add two cups of whole-grain wheat flour to the mixture.

5. Add half a cup of bran to the mixture.

6. Add the olive oil to the mixture.

7.  Add the salt.

8. Mix with the hand-mixer, add water very very VERY carefully and always make sure that everything is well-mix and need more water before you start adding more water. Your goal is a well-mixed homogeneous and elastic dough that barely sticks to your fingers. Excessive amount of water can RUIN YOUR LIFE FOREVER .. just kidding .. I'm writing this post on the Halloween  :D ... your dough would be screwed though !

9. Cover the dough and let it sit for two hours.

10. When you move the cover after two hours the dough should be doubled or tripled in size.

11. Get the dough out, put it on a floured flat-surface, roll it so it's easy to cut and cut it into 8 - 10 equal pieces.

12. You can start baking immediately ... or .. to get freshly baked bread .. you can wrap the pieces with thin film and put it into the fridge.

13. Preheat the oven to the maximum degree possible.

14. Spread some bran, put one of the dough-ball-thingies over it, spread some flour on top and flatten it well with a rolling pin.

15. put the baking sheet on top of the tray, put the dough on top of the baking sheet and put it into oven.

16. Leave into oven for a couple of minutes until it puffs up.

17. You can serve it immediately if you like it crunchy or cover it if you like it softer for 5 minutes before serving.

18. Enjoy :-)