one thick on the bottom, many thin on the top method for a spinach pita

In this post we see another method Lude uses for making pita. For lack of a better name, I will call this the "one thick on the bottom, many thin on the top" method.

Here is the end product. This homemade phyllo was used for a spinach pita.

See the previous post on the review of dough making to see how Lude makes her phyllo dough from scratch.

Lude begins by rolling out the small balls somewhat.

The small discs of dough are simply stacked in the beginning (see the stack below, right). The flattened-out larger (medium-sized) ball has been rolled out somewhat too (at left).

Now she stretches out each disc of dough, oils it, and reassembles the stack. (There is a tiny bit of olive oil on the unoiled stack because we have rested the spoon there.)

How smart and convenient to rest the oily spoon on a circle of dough.

The oiled stack is almost finished. 

Now the new larger circle is rolled thinner to fit the bottom of the pan (not shown). Afterwards it is folded so it can be more easily brought over to the pan and reopened.

Below Lude stretches the dough to run up the sides of the pan.

You can fill the pita with whatever you like. Lude's recipe for a Kosovar-Albanian style filling is in this previous post.

Below Lude places the sheet of phyllo she has rolled out from the 10-disc stack on top of the pita.

Below she joins the top and bottom layers of dough just as you would for American-style pie.

Before the pita goes in the oven it is spread with a 1:1:1 mix of sunflower seed oil, water and Schmand (you can substitute sour cream or heavy cream, or just leave it out)

The pita comes out of the oven.  The top may cook faster than the bottom. The bottom should also be a light brown color. If it isn't reduce the heat on top and keep cooking it.

The layers of phyllo on top are well-separated and flaky.

And that's the "one thick on bottom, many thin on top" way of rolling out homemade phyllo!

How to prepare homemade phyllo dough, a review with more details

I don't think it can hurt to show you the basics of dough making again, with a little more detail. The actual recipe can be found in this previous post.

Lude kneads the dough with a spoon. In the two videos that immediately follow you can watch how she does this. Of course doing it by hand works as well.

The dough before it gets divided.

Below watch how Lude divides up the dough and rolls each lump into a beautiful ball.
Here she is preparing to make two styles of pita. One is the coiled style pita that requires two large balls of dough. The other is the "one thick on bottom, many thin on top" method which requires one medium-sized ball and ten small balls.

 

Because she wants ten small lumps of dough...

but doesn't leave only has enough dough to make eight, she takes some dough from the medium-sized ball. No problem!

Below is another chance to see how she takes lumps and forms them into balls.

All the balls are put into plastic bags to rest for 30 min or so.

Now is the time to prepare the filling. Here she cleans and slices the spinach.

And adds finely chopped green onion.

To make the coiled-style pita Lude begins by rolling out one of the two large balls dough. 

The video below is one of the most important things in this blog. Below Lude artfully uses the slim rolling pin to roll out the dough. She rolls the dough around the rolling pin, gently rocks it, and unrolls it. She then rotates the dough and repeats.

Oil is placed on the dough. It gets spread around by lifting the dough and folding it over onto itself several times.

Below is a video of how the oil gets spread around.

She pulls the edges of the circle outward to make them thinner.

Next the filling is placed around the edges and the edges of dough are rolled in, while the dough is also being pulled out at the same time. See the post about coiled style pita for how to continue.