Saturday, July 18, 2009

Garlic and Herb Chapati

As always, I'm a bit lazy and don't want to spend time baking bread(it is a very long and drawn out process). However I felt like having focaccia(yes the yummy bread with herbs, garlic and loooots of olive oil), so I decided to make a similarly flavoured chapati and see how it turns out.




Ingredients:












































Whole Wheat Flour:2 cups + more for dusting
Water:Enough to make a really hard dough(we'll soften it up using lots of Olive Oil!!)
Softened Salted Butter:5 Tbsp
The Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil that you can get your hands on and afford:5 Tbsp
Mixed Dried Herbs(Parsley, Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme):1-2 Tbsp
Salt:1/4 tsp or to taste
Fresh Garlic Paste(it needs to be FRESH!!):of about 10 cloves
An appetite:as much as you can squeeze in!!






Procedure:


  1. Make a very hard dough from the whole wheat flour, water, herbs and garlic paste(take a really deep sniff, close your eyes, and savour the smell for a while).


  2. Use all the Olive Oil and mix it with the dough to make it hard(very hard to hard).


  3. Use this dough to make about 8-10 portions for rolling out.


  4. Keep tava(pan) for heating up on a slow flame. This will ensure that your tava is heated up evenly and your chapati won't get burnt or cooked unevenly.


  5. Roll out the chapati apply dusting flour regularly to prevent it from sticking. Roll out slightly thicker than standard chapatis because we have garlic and herbs in the dough. They may cause the chapati to puncture if we roll it out too thin. If the chapati gets punctured, then it won't balloon like we want it to.


  6. Cook the first size on a slow flame on the tava just until small boils begin to appear on the top surface.


  7. Turn the chapati over and cook on medium flame, turning the chapati so that the sides are cooked well. Always keep the sides in the center of the flame. The center of the chapati will get cooked well automatically. Now, larger boils will appear on the surface, and the under-surface will have brown spots on it.


  8. Make the flame high, remove the chapati from the tava quickly, remove the tava from the stove and turn the chapati up-side-down on the direct flame. Watch it balloon!!!! (if you've done everything well till now. It took me a month and lots of flat chapatis to get to this stage).


  9. Turn it around for just 1 second(or for symmetry as Appu would put it).


  10. Take it off the flame and apply a little of the melted butter while it is still steaming hot.... Smell it again and again till you think you've attained nirvana....


  11. Eat it!!!!



3 comments:

Shaheen said...

Again, love the detailed information. right from why we shouldn't roll it to thin to why we should heat the tava on a low flame to watching out for "boils" on the chapati. It amuses me to no end!

My mom is adept at tossing the roti on the direct flame. I wish to master that some day as well.

Shaheen said...

Btw, which extra virgin olive oil do you use?

Dhruv Matani said...

thanks :)
and all moms are. That skill comes bundled with their kids ;)

I use Daroliva or Leonardo Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
What about u?