Gyros Flatbread Recipe

Click the video for a run through on how to make easy gyros flatbreads

"Bread is the warmest, kindest of all words. Write it always with a capital letter, like your own name." - Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Flatbreads are a staple of cooking throughout Greece, Turkey and the Middle East. A versatile, easy to make bread, they are stuffed, used as wraps or as a replacement for cutlery when accompanying a stew or something like a tabbouleh.

This recipe is specifically to make a pita bread fit for a fantastic Gyros filling. Typically we think of Pita bread as white oval pockets we see in packets at the supermarket. In Greece, however, Pita is used in many different ways, for Gyros it is folded around into a cone with oregano and salt chips, chicken or pork and tzatziki. This recipe creates a light, malleable bread that works really well when folding around a filling.

This recipe will make between 6 to 8 flatbreads and they typically last around 48 hours. They are also delicious if eaten on their own or with the Smoky Cashew Dip.

Song for this recipe:

Here it goes again - OK GO

Audiobook for this recipe:

My family and other animals - Gerald Durrell

Ingredients:

• 10g x Yeast

• 10g x Salt

• 5g x Sugar

• 430g x Bread flour

• 1 tbsp x Olive oil

• 200ml x Milk

• 300ml x Tepid water (not all may be needed)

Directions:

• Pour the bread flour into a large bowl

• Add the yeast to one side of the flour

• Add the salt to the other - make sure they don’t touch each other at this stage

• Add the sugar to the mixture

• Pour in the olive oil

• Add all of the milk

• Pour in a splash of the water and then fold the flour in. Keep adding water until all the flour is incorporated into the dough, but make sure it isn’t too wet and sticky. If you add too much water then you can reverse the process with more flour - but this will make a larger amount of wraps and your yeast may not create as much of a rise.

• Once you have folded in the dough then knead until no longer sticky. The best way to do this is with a mixer and a dough hook.

• Place a clean tea towel over the bowl and place in a warm (but not hot) area for 2 hours until doubled in size.

• Once the dough has proved, knock the air back by folding the dough in on itself

• Roll the dough into a rough sausage shape and then cut it into 6 to 8 evenly sized pieces.

• Flour the dough balls and using your hands like a cage, roll the dough in between them until it forms a smooth ball. Place it on a floured or oiled surface and move to the next one.

• Cover again and place somewhere warm for 1 hour until doubled again in size

• Take a dough ball and roll it out into a flat circle. The thinner you roll it, the crispier the bread, so the trick for a foldable bread for gyros is to roll it out until it’s about 0.75 - 1 cm thick. repeat for all the dough. Also don’t roll it out to wider than the circumference of the pan you want to fry in.

• Heat a frying pan or a griddle to a medium high heat. Spray on a thin layer of sunflower oil (very thin).

• Place the rolled out dough into the pan, it will start to bubble as it cooks. Once the whole surface is bubbling and it is clearly toasted on one side, flip the dough and push down to flatten out the air pockets.

• Once the bread is golden brown on both sides, take out and place on kitchen paper or greaseproof paper. Repeat with the rest of the dough until you have 6-8 flatbreads!

• These will keep for a few days. Before wrapping around a filling, pop it under a grill or in a hot oven for 30 seconds so it becomes malleable again.