..And so it begins....

Pita

Welcome to Mama Anna's School of (somewhat) fine Balkan cooking.

Take a seat and be quiet please.

Yes, that means you - up the back in the corner...

the one that always orders steak, three veg and a VB can from the Chinese restaurant down the road....

pay attention please...

Thank you.

Pita has it's origins from Bosnia. 

Traditionally a Turkish dish, now everyone makes it.

Serbian, Muslim and Croatian.

At each others throats sometimes, all are one in the kitchen.

Now that I pestered my brother-in-law's wife to teach me last Christmas how to make it (and she showed me) I too, have joined the ranks.

Yes.

Now that I have (somewhat) mastered the delicacy I may now be married off to a Bosnian at the age of 17...

You will need:

Fine flour

Pork Mince (roughly 300g)

An onion

Two medium potatoes

Lots of patience (you will need about ten go's at it to get it right).

A not-clean floor (inevitably foodstuff will find it's way to the tiles/carpet/floorboards).

After sifting four cups of really fine flour, adding a pinch of salt and a cup and half of warm water then kneading it well, you  should have something like this:

This is left to rest a while (and rightly so - it's hard work being prodded and poked like that I must say).

Whilst that is left to have a nap (in a warm place) the ingredients are prepared.

The onion and potatoes are finely diced and placed with the pork mince in a bowl with plenty of salt.

Variations without meat include egg, sour cream and thickened cream, egg and spinach, cabbage or plain potato.

These are usually made on a Friday or simply when meat is in scant supply.

The well-rested and now rejuvenated dough is now ready to be cut into four pieces and rolled into balls.

These are then rolled out and drops of oil applied to soften the dough for stretching.

Folded over, they will now be ready to be hand-stretched.

(The bloody tricky part).

Sorry I couldn't show it being hand-stretched but...

My hands were rather full.

This is the end product (though please don't look at the holes - I did say I had somewhat mastered it and when it's eventually rolled up it [thankfully] makes no difference).

The filling is now ready to be applied.

Once the mince, onion and potato is evenly spread out, the tablecloth is used to "roll" the dough and filling.

Like so:

Rolled halfway, it's then cut and ready to be rolled again..

Once it's browned nicely, boiling water (with some salt) is added to it.  Returned to the oven once more for a few minutes or until the water has pretty much disapeared is the final step.

Dobar tek....