PIKI BREAD

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PIKI BREAD

Piki is a special bread made by the Hopi of their blue corn. It is several thicknesses of transparently thin flat bread 15 or 16 inches in diameter, rolled into a scroll; the best is so light it is almost weightless. It is crisp and delicious with the delicate but distinctive blue corn flavor. The next paragraph is a description of the traditional method of making piki, as told by Carol Locust of the Native American Research and Training Center of the University of Arizona.
"I remember seeing her on her knees in the piki house, a small outside building of ancient blocks, and watching her test the large, flat, piki stone for its heat. The blue corn meal in the bowl beside her had been ground to powder, mixed with a small amount of finely sifted ashes, and blended with fresh spring water until thick and smooth as cream. Kneeling in front of the piki stone, Ellie was hardly visible, but she became a whirlwind of activity when the stone was hot enough. Her hands moved like lightning. Deftly she dipped one hand into the bowl of piki mixture, scooping a certain amount on the outside of her palm, and swiftly -- very swiftly -- swept her hand and the mixture across the hot stone. As quickly Ellie's other hand lifted the parchment and placed it to the side, while another scoop of mixture was already being swept across the stone. The two transparent sheets were rolled together, and a third and fourth added, and a fifth and sixth, until Ellie was satisfied and the rolled transparent sheets became a piki bread. Ellie worked tirelessly and, it seemed, effortlessly."

Paper Bread (Piki)

5 tablespoons Masa Harina®
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour in the hot water and whisk the batter for a few seconds until it is smooth. Heat a nonstick skillet over low heat until it is warm. Remove the skillet from the heat. With a pastry brush, brush on a layer of batter, using broad strokes all in one direction. Immediately apply a second layer of batter at right angles to the first layer. Return the skillet to the heat source and cook for about 1 minute. The batter will sizzle and evaporate all moisture before it is done. As soon as the hissing stops and the surface of the bread looks dry and crinkly, peel it off with your fingers by starting up one edge with a table knife, then grasping it by hand and pulling up gently. The layer will peel away easily. Lay it on paper toweling or a baking rack to dry completely and proceed to make 3 more pikis to lay on top. Do not place the piki on a plate once baked, since it will further steam them and cause them to become sticky. Once you have 4 layers, roll them loosely into a scroll and set aside. Serve slightly re-warmed or at room temperature with salsa and a main course.
Blue Piki
Make batter from 3 tablespoons blue cornmeal, 2 tablespoons Masa Harina® and 3 tablespoons cornstarch plus the salt and water in the basic recipe.
Pink or Yellow Piki
Add a few drops of food coloring to the basic batter as you whisk it up.

Hopi Piki Bread
Ingredients
3 Tablespoon Chamisa Ash
(cooking ash comes from the burning up of various plants)
1/2 Cup Cold Water
6 Cups Finely Ground Cornmeal
8 Cups Boiling Water
6-8 Cups Cold Water
Method
+ Mix chamisa ash with 1/2 cup cold water and set aside
+ Put cornmeal in piki bowl, push 1/3 of the meal to the back of the bowl
+ Pour 4 cups boiling water into the 2/3 amount of cornmeal and stir until well blended
+ Add remaining boiling water and stir until moist and stiff
+ Gradually strain ash water through cheesecloth into the dough just until it turns blue
+ When dough has cooled enough to touch knead until smooth
+ Add the dry meal gradually
+ Set dough aside and build fire under the piki stone and allow to heat up
+ Meanwhile, gradually knead cold water into the dough until it is a thin consistency smooth batter, add more water during making process if necessary
+ Wipe off hot stone and oil with bone marrow or cooked brains, repeat as necessary during making process
+ Scoop small amount of batter from bowl with fingers and spread tissue paper thin across stone from left to right, eliminating any lumps
+ Dip fingers into batter again to cool them and bring out another scoop
+ Continue to spread and layer batter across stone until completely covered
+ When piki is done it will seperate from the stone, gently lift away and place it on the piki tray
+ The first piece should be fed to the fire
+ Spread more batter onto the stone and let cook, then place the prepared piki back onto the stone to soften
+ Fold two ends of the piki 1/4 way toward center, then gently roll piki away from you
+ Place back on Piki Tray
+ Remove Piki sheet from stone and spread with more batter to repeat process until all batter is used
+ If Piki tears simply return to batter to dissolve and reuse

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Hopi Piki Bread (Traditional)
Yield: 1 batch
1 c Green juniper ash
1 c Blue cornmeal
1 c Boiling water
3 c Water
Sunflower oil for greasing_the cooking stone
Mix ash with boiling water; strain juniper ash into pot. Stir. Add blue
cornmeal. Stir with wooden spoon or stick. Let cool. Spread on hot,
greased griddle or stone with palm of hand. Be certain the layer is very
thin. Cook for a very short time. Carefully lift the paper-thin layer
from griddle by rolling from one end to the other jelly-roll fashion.

Culinary Ash
Culinary ash is made from burning the wood of certain trees until there is only ash left.
Many types of trees and bushes found in the Southwest can be used; the Navajos use juniper primarily and the Hopis use green plants such as suwvi or chamisa (rabbitbrush) bushes.
The green twigs, when burned, produce an ash with a high mineral content.When used in cooking, it increases the food's nutritional value.When culinary ash is mixed with boiling water and corn,the alkaline level in the ash reacts with the corn and changes it to a more intense color.After the water has cooled, the corn changes again - to something close to its original color.If you live in an area where culinary ash is difficult to obtain, baking soda can be used as a substitute, although it doesn't have the high nutritional content of ash.
Substitute 2 tablespoons baking soda for 1 cup ash.
Lois Ellen Frank, "Native American Cooking".

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MOCK PIKI BREAD
Corn meal "piki" pancakes
INGREDIENTS:
1 JIFFY corn muffin mix
1 cup corn meal
2 cups milk
1 egg
2 T. vegetable oil
You'll need an electric griddle for preparing this special treat. The Indians prepared it on sandstone slab over an open fire. Silence was demanded during the oiling and preparation of the stone, lest it should crack and break! Actual piki bread was made from blue corn meal. Ashes and water to make the meal to make a batter. The bread was rather gray in color. This recipe, adapted for primary palates, is more like pancakes than bread.
1. Combine ingredients and mix thoroughly.
2. Lightly grease griddle with vegetable oil.
3. Pour enough batter on griddle to make a 3-inclh pancake.
4. Flip when air bubbles appear over surface.
5. Cool pancakes and roll; fasten roll with toothpick.
Yield: 5 dozen pancakes
Serve berries or a berry juice along with the piki pancakes.

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PIKI ( PAPER BREAD)

The Pueblos have the distinction of making what must be the thinnest bread
in the world--piki. It does rather an injustice to it to call piki simply
"paper bread," for its layers are at least as thin as tissue paper and often
look like they are composed of more air than bread. In the traditional
recipe, a thin batter is made from blue cornmeal and water that has been
soaked with juniper ashes. The cook sits before a flat stone that has been
heated in a fire, armed with no other implement than one whole sheep's
brain. This she uses to grease the stone, after which she spreads a thin
layer of piki batter across the entire surface with a deft sweep of her
hand. When the papery sheet of corn batter crinkles and dries, it is lifted
off. Three or four stacked sheets rolled together into a scroll make one
piki.

As it turns out piki is easy to duplicate at home if you have any size
skillet coated with a nonstick surface (a 7-8" pan is ideal). The batter is
brushed onto the pan bottom with a bristle brush (nylon might melt) and
lifted off in layers as thin as gossamer. Suprisingly, the procedure is not
delicate at all, because however fragile the piki looks, it is strongly
bound by the gluten in the cornstarch. If you can pour crepe batter and are
adventurous enough to experiment with homemade tortillas and sopaipillas,
you will have no trouble with piki.

For 8 scrolls of bread, serving 4 people:
5 T. Masa Harina
2 T. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
1 C. hot water

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, pour in the hot water all at once, and
whisk the batter for a few seconds until it is smooth. Arm yourself with a
1" bristle brush, preferably a good-quality pastry brush or, failing that, a
paintbrush. Heat a nonstick skillet over low heat until it is warm, but do
not grease it. The size does not much matter, since small pikis and large
ones are equally easy to lift once they dry thoroughly. The pan should not
be made so hot that the batter sizzles when yu try to brush it on, for the
action of the nonstick material will then cause it to bead up. What you want
is a layer of batter spread onto the pan like a layer of paint.

Take the skillet up iin one hand and brush on a layer of batter, using this
at right angles to it--in other words, you are painting in a crosshatch. Do
not worry about holes in the surface, since even a coating almost
imperceptible to the eye will cook into bread. Return the skillet to the
heat and cook for about a minute. The batter has to sizzle and evaporate all
its moisture before it is done. As soon as the hissing stops and the surface
of the bread looks dry and crinkly, peel it off with your fingers by
starting up one edge with a table knife, then grasping it by hand and
pulling up on top. The layer will peel away easily. Lay it on paper toweling
or a baking rack to dry completely and proceed to make 3 more pikis to lay
on top. Do not place the piki on a plate once baked, since further steaming
causes them to become too sticky--a few moments on paper towels completes
their drying out.

Once you have 4 layers, roll them loosely into a scroll and set aside. Cook
the breads in this fashion until you have made 2 per person. Serve slightly
warm or at room temperature with a good sals and your main-course dish,
preferably a Pueblo stew.

NOTES: One small problem abut baking the piki is that a skillet hot enough
to dry out the dough is too hot to brush with more batter right away. It
helps to have two pans on hand, one to cool while the other bakes. Also,
piki dough tends to become gummy on the brush, which needs washing once that
becomes a nuisance. Finally, if the batter in the bowl looks too thick at
any point, you can dilute it with water or simply make up a new batch.

VARIATION:
Piki in Blue, Yellow and Pink: In ceremonial and festive use, the Pueblos
often color this bread, using blue cornmeal for the blue, ground coxcomb for
the pink and safflower for yellow. For blue piki, make a batter from 3 T.
blue cornmeal, 2 T. Masa Harina and 3 T. cornstarch, plus the water and salt
in the basic recipe. For pink and yellow breads, simply add a few drops of
food coloring to the basic batter as you whisk it up.

from THE FEAST OF SANTA FE by Huntley Dent