BBB make chapatis

This month our lovely hostess of the month is Elizabeth ("Blog from Our kitchen") picked a flatbread recipe for us to bake. They love flatbreads here, especially ones that go with a delicious meal. I made chapatis a long time ago, about time I made some again. So Chapatis were on the menu last week. 

Check out Elizabeth's awesome video how to bake and puff these little breads up like a balloon. As I don't have a stove with flames or electric (I use induction), I didn't get them to puff up like that, but they still were very good. I just pressed them to the pan with a spatula and give them enough heat to bake all the way through. I must admit I had some issues with these, I poured in too much of the water to start with and ended up needing a lot of flour to roll them out. Of course this resulted in a lot of smoke when the flour started to burn in the hot pan, fortunately our fire alarm didn't go off in the room next door. So mine weren't all that they should have been, but still very good. I had big plans to make a delicious rendang, curry, or tikka massala to accompany them, but in the end I just baked some chicken drumsticks, took the meat of the bones and threw several ingredients from the cupboards in (green curry spices, coconut milk, ginger, lemon grass, chili, courgette ... ecc.) and it turned out super delicious in the end (the sauce could have been a little thicker though). We all enjoyed this very much.

Now your mouth is watering right?! So bake along with us and treat yourself (and your family) to home made chapatis and make something delicious to go with them. Bake, taste and tell us about your experiences, send all your details to our kitchen of the month Elizabeth. She'll send you the Bread Baking Buddy Badge (you can add that to your post if you like) and put your entry in a round up later on. Deadline for sending in your admission is the 29th of this month. Have a wonderful time baking!

CHAPATIS, AKA ROTIS (INDIAN FLATBREAD)

(makes 8)

(PRINT recipe)

Equipment

stove

open wire rack (open wire rack on feet so it’s about an inch off the burner)

rolling pin

heavy carbon steel shallow frying pan (tava)

tongs

lidded pot

Ingredients

140 g all purpose flour

70 g whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

up to 1 c. just-boiled water (I used less)

In a bowl, mix flours and salt. Add hot water gradually, stirring with a fork until you have a soft dough. The amount of water will vary drastically depending on air temperature and humidity. You just have to play with it. You are aiming for dough that resembles silly putty. Using as little extra flour as possible, knead on a board or in the air for 10 minutes until the dough is soft and silky.Put the dough back in the bowl. Cover with a damp cloth or plate and let sit on the counter for 30 minutes to one hour.

Put the tava (or iron cast skillet) on medium heat. Do not oil it. Put the wire rack on another burner at the highest heat possible. Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Lightly flour each one and put 7 pieces back in the bowl. Cover the bowl.

Form the piece of dough into a ball and flatten it. Roll it out into a round til it is quite thin but not too thin - about 2 mm.  As you roll out the dough, make sure it is not sticking to the board and that there are no holes. Keep the rolling pin lightly dusted with as little flour as possible and the board the same way.

Place the round of dough on the hot tava (griddle). As soon as you see little bubbles form, turn it over using tongs. As soon as there are little bubbles on the reverse side, lift the bread off the tava with the tongs and place it on the wire rack. It should puff up. Turn it over once or twice to ensure that it puffs up completely. Don't be worried to see a few dark brown spots on it. (If you are lucky enough to have a gas stove, you can hold the bread directly over the flame.)

Put the finished bread into a pot and cover it with a lid. Keep it in a warm oven. Roll out the next piece of dough and repeat til you have 8 rotis. As you put a new roti on the stack, turn the finished rotis over to keep the bottom ones from getting wet.

(based on "Flat Wholewheat Bread - Roti" in A Taste of India by Madhur Jaffrey)