SESAME AND BONITO FLAKED CRUSTED TOFU

Tofu has never been on my favourite food list. I can eat it.....but it doesn't give me that blithely bounce in my step or the fireworks in my head or the squint in my eyeballs kind of feeling that a creamy, rich, dark evil chocolate ganache or a stinky, stingy sambal belacan or the outrageous, soluble humps of a Baskin and Robbins would. 

It is just simply all-the-way-bland. Say what you may. 

But when I saw a picture of these in Divina Pe's beautiful blog Sense and Serendipity I was stunned into a meek silence and it made me swear to make it. My little tastebuds trembled. They did not rest until I had made some.  

I now sheepishly pronounce that these golden tofu nuggets are absolutely beyond wonderful. Dunk them into a spicy-salty soy-vinegar bird chillie bejewelled sauce and you may think that you've died and been granted eternity in tofu heaven.

So sharing this recipe is my good deed for the day.

Bonito flakes or katsuabushi sounded Greek/Japanese to me. But I found them quite easily in the Japanese section of Jusco.  

They are fish flakes made from dried, fermented and smoked skipjack tuna and are one of the main ingredients of a dashi, a broth that forms the basis of many Japanese soups.  Fishy and smelly heaven. Quite like what anchovies or dried shrimps are to the South East Asian palate. Just more refined.

Tell me, how can anything that is slathered in smelly, wispy, fishy flakes and a million sesame seed bits, fried to a golden, feathery, crust on the outside with a wobbly, silky and creamy inside not be good? 

But remember....dunk them in thoroughly before you let them slither down your throat. If you still find it bland you need not speak to me ever again and/or you may swear and condemn me to tofu heaven. I'd be happy to oblige.

The recipe by Divina Pe from Sense and Serendipity 

The tofu :


1 block semi firm tofu (320 gm)

1 egg
1/4 cup all purpose flour (I used cornflour)
1/4 cup sesame seeds (or a mixture half and half black and white)
1 cup bonito flakes

2 T rice bran oil or untoasted sesame seed oil
(I used a vegetable cooking oil)



Dipping sauce.....

3 T light soy sauce
1 T rice wine vinegar (I used aple cider vinegar)
2 small bird chilies, finely chopped (optional)

Topping.......


1 inch piece fresh ginger, grated
1 green or spring onion, finely sliced

Prepare tofu : Drain the tofu of any liquid. Pat dry with a clean dish cloth or paper towels, pressing down a little with the palm of your hand to make sure the tofu is dry and to remove excess water. Lay on a board and cut into 3/4 or 1 inch cubes. About 8 slices.


Breading the tofu : Place the flour/cornflour into 1 medium bowl. Break and egg into another and beat lightly to mix the white and yolk well and in the last bowl place the combination of bonito flakes and sesame seeds.


Taking one slice of tofu, cover it completely with flour, dip it in the egg and then coat it in the bonito/sesame seed mixture. Place on a plate and do the same for the rest of the sliced tofu.


Frying the tofu : Heat up the oil in a pan on medium high till hot but not smoking. Carefully place the crusted tofu slices in one by one and make sure that they are seperate. Fry for about 2 minutes on each side or until lightly golden. When done remove and drain on kitchen paper.


Make the dipping sauce :


Slice the bird chillies (if using). Place in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and vinegar and mix well. Put in a serving bowl.


Garnish with topping :


Place the ginger paste and sliced spring onions on top of each tofu crust and put on a serving plate.


To serve :


Either let the guests dip the tofu into the dipping sauce or using a teaspoon dribble some sauce over the tofu before eating. 


Enjoy.

 





 .

CURRY PUFFS

When my children thought these puffs were deep fried it was like little bubbles of pleasure had burst inside of me. I knew I had hit the jackpot.

Traditionally Malay curry puffs are deep fried to acquire a crispy crust to complement the spicy curry filling of meat and potatoes inside. But finally, I have conjured up the perfect curry puff crust....that is, baked and not fried, for a healthier version.

Yet they were crisp, crusty, crunchy and flaky and stayed that way for hours. Comparable and as delicious as the traditionally deep fried ones.


I had used the short crust pastry dough for the Nori Nibbles in my previous post but to which I added an extra ounce of butter which proved to be a very good move because it simply made the pastry that much crustier.

Since I also wanted the pastry to take the form of a spiral pastry dough which seems to be the rage these days in Malaysian curry puff world I rolled out the dough into a rough rectangle that was about 1/4 inch thick.

Then, just in the nick of time, I remembered Jamie Oliver's pastry for his Portuguese Egg Tarts. So I decided to sprinkle some cinnamon powder over the pastry rectangle before rolling it up.

That little activity stimulated me and I thought chillie powder would be good too so I reached for some and sprinkled that on which in turn got me more animated that I thought cumin would be even better so I sprinkled that on as well.

With that, I may have perfected the Art of Indecisiveness.


Verdict : None of the spices stood out in flavour. I should have stuck to one spice and sprinkled a substantial amount rather than a little of each. Preferred choice : cinnamon. Or curry powder?

No matter. The curry puffs were a hit anyway.

And although they were not as pretty as I would have liked them to be they passed the bill in this house.

PS : I had also sprinkled some grated cheddar cheese over the filling before I folded the pastry over to seal. That added a nice cheesy twist.

The recipe..............................

For the filling...............

200 gm beef fillet or chicken tenders, minced or cut into very thin and tiny pieces
2 medium potatoes or 1 medium potato and 1 small sweet potato, skinned and diced small
1 white onion, diced finely
2 pips garlic, (optional)
2 T curry powder plus 1/4 cup of water and mixed to a paste
1/4 - 1/2 cup water or chicken stock
1 T cornflour mixed with a little water
salt

Some grated cheddar cheese (optional)

4 T cooking oil



Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions, garlic until fragrant. Add the curry powder paste and continue to saute until the curry paste turns darker and is cooked through.

Add in the diced potatoes and the meat and the chicken stock or water, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until the potatoes are tender and the meat done. Add salt to taste. Finally thicken with cornflour.

Ideally the mixture should be between dry and ever so slightly saucy. Thick-ish really.

Let the cooked filling cool completely before using.

The pastry......................

8 oz plain flour
5 oz butter, frozen block of it
5-6 T of ice cold water

Sift flour into a medium bowl, Grate the frozen butter over the flour. Using your finger tips mix the flour and butter so that the curls of butter are well coated and are distributed evenly throughout.

Sprinkle about 5 or 6 tablespoons of cold water over the flour-butter mix and using a fork at first stir to bring the dough together. If the dough seems a little too dry add another tablespoon of cold water and mix again. When the dough looks moist enough to cling together, use your fingers to gather and pat and squeeze the dough into a squarish shape very lightly.

*Excessive handling will make the dough tough and the butter will melt.

Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the freezer for 15v minutes or so until it firms up but not too hard sothat you can still roll it out.

*It is important that the butter remains in visible pieces because this is what will make the pastry puff, be crunchy and ever so flaky. The batter forms pockets as the pastry bakes and as it melts and the steam from the melting butter pushes up the dough forming layers making the resulting pastry puffy and flaky.

Take the dough out from the freezer and flour a board. Place the dough on top and roll out the dough until it forms a rough rectangle that is about between 1/4 inch thick. (Sorry that I did not measure the size)

You may make the edges neat by trimming them. I didn't because I did not want to waste any pastry.

Sprinkle some cinnamon/cumin/chillie powder or cayenne pepper generously over the rectangle of dough. Roll up the dough tightly from one end until it becomes a log. Place in the freezer again to firm up if your kitchen is warm like mine.

Constructing the curry puffs...............

Take out from the freezer and slice a few slices at a time (perhaps at most 4, if your kitchen is warm). The slices should be about but not quite 1 cm thick. Roll out one slice until it becomes a bigger circle about 3 inches in diameter. You will be able to see a spiral of dark spice in the slice of dough. Put the filling in the centre using a small teaspoon, add some grated cheddar dheese if you like then fold the pastry circle over the filling and crimp to seal with your fingers, Malaysian style, or press with a fork. Finish the rest of the pastry in the same way. You will get about 20 - 25 curry puffs. While you are doing a few slices refrigerate the rest.

Bake the curry puffs in a preheated oven at 170 C for s5 - 30 minutes until teh curry puffs ar alight golden brown. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

RAISIN SCONES

What can I say. These are scones. Just plain scones with raisins embedded. Made with flour, butter, heavy cream, ground almonds/pecans and an egg. Handled lightly with your fingers, patted down and stamped with a round fluted cutter and baked for a mere 10 minutes. Its done.

Scones are best eaten warm or hot out of the oven. Kept overnight it tends to be dry and crumbly.


These are not high and mighty scones but they are, however, very light, moist and tender.

Plain scones do need to be eaten with butter and jam and/or clotted cream. Otherwise it isn't such an exciting pastry. A little boring in fact.

So I'm not at all surprised that the original plain scone has given way to a wide variety of savoury flavours. It makes it more interesting, it gives it more character and it definitely has more appeal.


But this is a very good basic scone recipe though. And I do like the addition of ground nuts into it. I believe it adds to the moistness. And of course I added the raisins which gave it a sweeter edge. On the whole I would have much preferred a savoury scone.

The next time I make scones I would omit the sugar. I would add some cheese, some slices of hot chillie pepper and maybe even some sliced sauteed onions or chives. And dare I suggest some chopped dried shrimps or anchovies as well? That would definitely be more appealing to my tastebuds.

I do apologize for the photographs. It's been dark and gloomy by the time I take the pictures so I do tend to end up with dark gloomy looking pictures too. Please bear with me.

The recipe...........

250 gm plain flour
1/4 cup ground pecans or almonds
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
a pinch of salt
60 gm butter
Almost 1 cup of heavy cream
1 egg

a handful of raisins or currants if you like. Or other dried fruits of your choice.

Sift flour and the baking powder and soda. Add salt, ground almonds and the sugar. Mix to incorporate the ingredients.Add the raisins if using.

Lightly beat egg in a measuring cup and add the heavy cream until it makes 1 cup of liquid.

Make sure the butter is very cold and cut it into smallish pieces. Put the butter in to the flour mixture and rub it in with your fingers very lightly or use 2 knives or a pastry cutter until it resembles coarsemeal or rough breadcrumbs. Its important to ensure that the butter doesn't melt and remain in small solid pieces so that the scones will be lifted up when the butter melts and its steam released while baking in the oven.

You may at this point chill the flour mixture in the freezer for 10 minutes if the kitchen is warm. Make a well in the centre and pour in the cream egg mixture. Using a fork stir very quickly until the mixture comes together. then using you finger bring the dough together to form a ball without kneading. place on a floured surface and pat the dough down with your fingers to about 1/2 inch in thickness. Cut into rounds.

Bake at 200 C for 10 - 12 mins. Best eaten warm with butter and jam and/or clotted cream.

SPRING ROLLS

There shouldn't be a recipe for spring rolls unless you like it in a certain way. And I do.

I like it when the spring roll skin has been lined with lettuce leaves for prettiness, smeared with 3 kinds of sauces for piquant-ness, heaped with julienned vegetables for crispness, piled with fruit for sweetness, sprinkled with crushed peanuts for crunchiness and maximised with shards of prawn crackers for saltiness. And only then will my spring rolls be perfect, nice, fat and outrageous.


That's the way I like it..... uh huh

But there is some work to be done beforehand. Don't be scared......just a little slicing, shredding and some Aristotelian compartmentalizing. And maybe a little boiling.... Uh huh...

Sengkuang or turnip I like. But I like them cooked. And I like them sweet. Because that's what my favourite spring roll stall does. I know because I asked. The turnip is shredded and boiled in brown sugar syrup until the turnips become gentle and soft and sweet. As sweet and gentle as you like it to be.


The carrots and the cucumber are to be brilliantly julienned, the sunshiny pineapple is to be peeled and chopped into bitty bits, some roasted peanuts crushed with a little love and some prawn crackers (or potato crisps) fragmented into tintillating pink shards. That's the Nigella part.

The 3 sauces are to be ready on the work top with a teaspoon dipped in each. Hoisin sauce from your supermarket shelf, taucheo sauce (yellow bean sauce) from the same shelf and a cooked chilli paste either bought in a bottle or homemade from blended dried chillies and sauteed in some amount of oil with a wisp of sugar and salt. That's the saucy part.


The spring roll skin would behave if separated and peeled before hand and covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying.

And the lettuce leaves would be very happy if they were washed and patted dry very tenderly.

Get a spring roll skin to lay quietly on the board. Introduce the pretty lettuce to the spring roll skin and let them be together. Spoon tiny dollops each of the saucy sauces onto the lettuce leaves to add some excitement. Bring the sweet shredded turnips (drained of syrup), julienned carrots, julienned cucumber and pineapple bitty bits together in a heap of fun. Then add a dash of crushed peanuts and the shards of pink prawn crackers for some wickedness.


Bring your fingers together and rock and roll.

Have a great party!

SOFT YOGHURT BUNS

You may be thinking "Oh no not another bun recipe!"

And I'll be thinking, " Foodies don't lie."

And you'll be saying, "What?"

You'll look puzzled and you might roll your eyes.

But I'll smile, cock my head, feel content and think, " Foodies don't lie." And I'll slump slightly and sigh....with a smile brushed across my face for the rest of the evening...feel content...and dreamily think, "Foodies don't lie."


Because Elin of Elinluv's Tidbits Corner wasn't fibbing when she sighed about what a fantastic bun recipe this was...how tender it was and how her whole evening was spent swooning and sniffing over the buns just as I'm doing right now.

God, foodies don't lie.

And if the great bun lady (Elin) says it's good it just has to be good. So I did it, I tried it, I made it and I LOVE it. It's fabulous. It is everything Elin said it was. She sure don't lie.


KWF of Pure Enjoyment don't lie either for this is where Elin got the recipe from. Thank you both for such a luscious bun recipe.


But where both Elin and KWF used a fruit flavoured yoghurt to flavour the buns, I did not. I used low fat yoghurt simply because that was all that I had in the refrigerator and it worked just fine....just GREAT.


And where Elin and KWF sprinkled their buns with sesame seeds I did not because I did not have any. But they were GREAT even without.


Here's the recipe for 6 buns............I doubled it and got 12 golden gorgeous buns in and I used an 11" by 9" pan
250 gm bread flour
15 gm sugar
3 gm salt
3 gm yeast
100 gm yoghurt (I used plain and low fat)
60 gm milk
25 gm egg (1/2 egg)
30 gm butter

Mix all dry ingredients in one large bowl.

Put all wet ingredients and butter (except egg) in a small pot and warm it up over a small fire until lukewarm (not too hot or you'll kill the yeast). Take off from the fire and mix with a wooden spoon.

Break egg in a small bowl and beat lightly and quickly pour into the wet mixture and stir quickly and then pour the whole mix into the dry ingredients. Stir with a spoon until the flour is incorporated and a rough dough forms. Now use your hands to bring the dough together and turn on to a lightly floured board and knead for about 6 to 8 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Lightly oil the bowl and place the kneaded dough inside, cover with a damp tea towel or cling film and let rest for an hour or until the dough doubles in bulk.

After the dough has risen take it out from the bowl and punch it down to rid it of air and knead it a little while, about 1 or 2 minutes and then roll into a log and cut into 6 pieces or 12 if you have doubled the recipe like I did. Shape each piece into a smooth ball and place in a pan (lined with parchment paper at bottom and sides) slightly apart (about 1/2 inch apart). Leave to rise until it doubles in bulk again. Brush the tops with egg wash (a beaten egg) and bake in a 170 C oven for 20 minutes.

APAM BALIK - PANCAKE TURNOVERS

Brass pots and pans are so hard to come by nowadays and are getting a little pricey for my liking. I went in search for them about a week ago at PJ old town, rummaging through topsy-turvy and dusty old shops. These are shops that seem completely disorganized with cast iron woks, bamboo brushes, heavy duty commercial gas rings and a myriad of other kitchen stuff sprawling over to the floors in dark dim corners ready to trip you up. These are shops that seem to have anything that you would need in an Asian kitchen from the small home cook to the commercial restaurant or stall owner plus some more from canes to whack your children with, if you are so inclined, to plastic dustbins, to rattan baskets, to tiffin carriers and to feather dusters. My kind of store.

Unfortunately they did not have the brass mould that I was looking for at a price that I was willing to pay for. So I left and decided that a good old non stick would just have to do for the pancakes that I was planning to make.


Traditionally this pancake turnover or apam balik is made in a brass mould because brass distributes heat evenly, is thick and heavy so food does not scald easily. These are what the brass moulds look like...


And these are the pancakes that are made and sold to a long queue of customers every Sunday.


The fillings are crushed peanuts, creamed corn, sugar and artery clogging magarine.

So these are what I made today,a Monday, when the apam balik family stall is not around. This is a very good recipe that makes a very good apam balik. As good as the apam balik man's apam balik I must say. It was given by one of the Malaysian ladies when we were in Taiwan at a time when many Malaysians get homesick and yearn for good old Malaysian street food. Thanks to her we were able to satiate our appetites for lovely apam balik. Did I tell you I have a bad memory for names? Unfortunately I do. I must try to recall.


The picture above and the one below are the first two apam baliks that I made. They weren't as pretty as the very last one that I made (in the first 2 photos above). Practice does make perfect. But it tasted good nevertheless.


Here's the recipe..........makes about 6 pancakes depending on the size of your pan...

340 gm plain all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar ( I used about 3 tablespoons instead)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups water
1 cup evaporated milk
3 tsp vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
a pinch of soda bicarbonate

1 cup or crushed peanuts (slightly coarse, not like powder)
1/2 cupof granulated sugar, more or less
a small tin of creamed corn, optional
some butter or magarine

a little cooking oil for swiping the pan.

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl until you get a smooth batter. Let the batter rest for at least 30 minutes or more. It will thicken upon resting and yield a nice thick batter.

Heat up a non stick pan. I used one that was about 7-8 inches in diameter. Swipe the pan with a little oil using kitchen paper. Make sure the pan is nice and hot.

Ladle up some batter, about 100 ml (a little less than 1/2 a cup), the amount depending on how thick or thin you would like your pancake to be. Pour the batter intot eh heated pan. Make sure the pan is on medium heat. Spread the batter around the bottom of the pan using the back of the ladle (in the case of the stall owner below, she used her enamel mug) until the batter is in an even layer.


Let it cook a little while until bubbles begin to appear....like so.....



Then sprinkle a layer of crushed peanuts, then a layer of sugar (granulated) and then if you like drop small dollops of sweet creamed corn from a tin, some blobs of butter or magarine and let the pancake cook until the top firms up and the batter is cooked through.


Using a flat ladle or spatula. lift and fold the pancake in half and take it out of the pan and place on a wire rack while you continue making more pancakes with the rest of the batter.




Cut up the pancake and serve, preferably hot or warm.


Home made apam balik below......YUMMY.............

GLUTINOUS CONES WITH COCONUT FILLING - KUIH KOCI

Hell-looow I'm back. Back from reality. From real life. As opposed to the my virtual one. I apologize for the sudden, unannounced exit but it was a totally on-the-spur-of-the-moment-thing, unplanned and something that I was completely in need of. Like food and water.

I've been lungeing at the treadmill, threatening those weights, revamping my garden (if you can call it one), painting the old rattan chair a fresh, vibrant white, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, gulping down some wheat-grasss-ed smoothies and living. Just plain down to earth, real life, tangible living.

It feels good and I figured I am now deserving of getting back into my virtual world for a moment, talk to you and make a treat for my blog. So I made some kuih koci - glutinous, sticky, sweet coconut filled cones standing pointedly pretty and ready to be bitten into....It's sticky, sweet without being overly so, stretchy and just so pointedly good!


For those of you who know not yet a combination of glutinous rice flour and coconut cream makes an amazingly giving and very obliging dough. Lacking the gluten present in wheat flour, there is no worry about over-mixing, over-kneading, of it cracking when shaping or even of it drying out. I had a blast handling this dough and it reminded me of a very white, fat and absolutely lazy cat who would allow you to twist, turn, bend, cuddle, squeeze, shape or press its soft plump body any which way you want without as much as a whimper or a threat. That was how it felt. Just so indulgent, gracious and agreeable.


The filling for the kuih koci (pronounced ko-weh ko-chi) was some coarsely shredded coconut sweetened with a thick palm sugar syrup and cajoled into a moist, dark, damp and scrummy mound; a very popular filling for Asian cakes and desserts.


And thank god for banana leaves too..... because it allows me to make my cakes in any form I fancy. And since I was in the mood for cones, cones it was. Love those pointed tips.


Here's the recipe...............

Prepare the banana leaves :

Wipe clean on both sides, cut into rectangular pieces about 6 by 4 inches and wilt the banana leaves over a fire on your stove or in the oven at a low temperature. Swipe them with some cooing oil before wrapping the glutinous rice cones.Check here on how to prepare banana leaves for wrapping.

The filling :

1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh shredded coconut
100 gm palm sugar, broken into pieces
1 tbsp regular white sugar or to taste
a pinch of salt

Place the palm sugar, white sugar, salt and 1 or 2 tablespoons of water ina small pot over small heat. When the palm sugar has dissolved pour in the shredded coconut. Mix well until teh coconut is veenly coated witht eh sugar and is a dark rich brown.

The dough :

2 cups glutinous rice flour
2 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
pinch of salt
1 cup (250 ml) coconut cream

Place the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Add the liquid ingredients and combine with a spatula first and then as the mixture begins to get lumpy use your hands to form into a smooth and soft dough. It may seem dry at first but rest assured that there is more than enough moisture to bind the dough together into a soft lovely mass.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll 1 piece into a ball and then flatten into a disc. Place the coconut filling in the centre of the disc, cover up and seal. You may at this point shape it inot a rough cone first.

Get a piece of wilted banana leaf and roll it into a cone shape like you would a piece of paper for piping icing. Place the filled dough snugly into the banana leaf cone, fold down the excess at the top firmly and tightly and place the filled cone flat down on its base. Do the same for the rest of the dough and filling.

I understand that one could staple the banana leaf into place to ensure that it doesn't open up during the steaming process but I haven't figured out how that could ever be done. An easier way of wrapping these little dumplings would be to place the filled ball of dough onto the rectangular banana leaf, fold over the top and bottom ends over the dough snugly and then fold the left and rights ends under and place them folded ends down flat on a plate until they are ready to be steamed.

If all this sounds too complicated to you, believe me, it's not. It sounds more complicated than it is. A little experimenting and common sense will work just fine.

Set a steamer ready at a rolling boil and steam those little babies for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve wrapped in the banana leaves. YUMMMMMMMM

PITA BREAD WITH NICE DEEP POCKETS

The most interesting thing about pita bread are their pockets. The way they puff and the way they don't brown too much. They remain mostly pale as they're cooked for only 5 minutes in an extremely hot oven. I had set the oven at the hottest setting and baked the breads on the lowest rack. It was as simple as that and in all honesty that is probably the secret to getting these babies to puff. It's all in the heat. And the fact that the dough was soft and moist provided enough moisture for steam to form that helped lift and puff the bread giving us the pleasure of finger deep pockets that we could fill with anything that strikes our fancy.

They were so quick, easy and enthralling to make that I should have made them when I first thought about it. And believe me that was a very very long time ago.



These breads were so easy that I made them twice today. I bumped into this recipe at Allrecipes.com and it was a complete success in puffiness, deep deep pockets and in look. A very good recipe indeed.


The recipe.......



3 cups all purpose flour ore whole wheat or half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/8 cups water
extra flour for dusting

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Mix yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl and add to the flour followed by the oil. Mix with a fork. If you have a bread machine you're supposed to put everything in and let the machine do the work. Please refer here if you're using a bread machine.

Mix well and then knead for about 5 minutes.Add more flour a little at a time if the dough is sticky. When the dough is smooth put it in a greased bowl and let it proof for 30 minutes to an hour. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or cling film.

When the dough has risen to double its size take it out from the bowl and divide into 8 parts.


Take one part and make it into a ball and then roll out into a circle with a rolling pin about 6 or 7 inches in diameter. There is no need to let them rise a second time. It is baked immediately.

Bake in a preheated hot hot hot hot hot hot oven directly on the oven's wire rack or on a separate wire rack or on a preheated baking pan (place the wire rack or baking pan in the oven for 15 minutes with the oven temperature at the highest setting). Bake for 5 minutes. Those babies will puff. Just before putting them in the oven you can also sprinkle the rolled out dough with some water for good measure. The drops of water changes to steam and helps the pita to puff up.

When puffed and lightly browned on the top take them out using a spatula and place them on a wire rack and cover with a damp cloth to let them soften. Do the same for the rest of the dough. And check those pockets out!

If they don't puff they will still taste good though. But if your oven is REALLY HOT they will have to puff.

According to the recipe they can be kept in the fridge in a plastic bag for a few days or in the freezer for 1 to 2 months.