Bhatoora
Edit: I’ve modified this recipe as of May 9th, 2011. The recipe and directions have changed. Deal with it. This one is better, and simpler.
As I mentioned in my Kheema post, the first time I had bhatoora/bhatura was in an Indian shop in Singapore. Before then I had tasted several kinds of naan. Naan is pretty popular now in North America and is manufactured by companies like President’s Choice and Dempster’s (don’t ever buy these if you’re craving Indian breads – they probably won’t taste the way you want them to) but India offers many kinds of breads that aren’t normally offered at buffet lines (which was, at the time, the only place I had ever had naan) and are not available commercially in most Western supermarkets including bhatoora, a puffy, deep-fried bread served often with chana masala (spiced chickpeas).
Paratha: A Relatively Complete Guide
Paratha – my Achilles heel. Not only is it bread, it’s fried bread. Fried, flaky, layered flat-bread – each inner layer is moist and buttery, the outer layer crispy and hot. Sigh. Like the ghee worked into the dough, I melt…
But let’s not get carried away. These things are so thick with ghee that even *I* feel a little guilty about indulging. You see, paratha is made by rolling out dough, slathering ghee on the surface, folding the dough over, and slathering on more ghee. You repeat this a few times until you have a rolled-out dough with multiple layers and pockets filled with ghee, ready to melt and sizzle instantly when the dough hits the pan.
Grilled Naan
Grilled Naan
Naan is ubiquitous in Toronto; you can get it fresh in a hundred restaurants (not all of them Indian, even), and it’s available for home purchase (fresh or frozen) in every major grocery store, being marketed by brands like Dempster’s, President’s Choice, and others. The word itself (meaning simply “bread” and dating back nearly 2000 years in the Persian language) has come to represent generic baked flatbreads of several regions, stretching from Iran and Afghanistan through Central Asia, parts of China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. Naan is bread, simple as that, and I love bread.
I also love my new grill, so what better way to celebrate these loves than by grilling fresh naan over hot coals? Answer: there is no better way.
Chapati
Chapati
Bread is one of my top-5 loves in life. I can’t even quite explain it, but there’s something about it. Flaky, soft, fluffy, dense, crusty, sweet, salty – bread can be just about anything you need it to be. It’s the perfect lover. Four lines in, and I’ve already reached my hyperbole quota. Anyway, bread is good but it’s hard to make. Chapati is not.
Chapati has only two required ingredients: water and flour. Most people are going to put a bit of salt in there, though, so now we have three ingredients. No big deal. Oh wait. I’m going to throw a wrinkle in this: atta flour. This is the great thing about Toronto – we have access to authentic ingredients. Some of them are even available quite readily. I don’t think people take advantage of this fact often enough, but then, I came from a small town where getting Indian food was never an option, let alone an idea. Honestly, some Torontonians just don’t realize how good they’ve had it with all the amazing culinary ideas and supplies brought to the city via immigrant communities. Back to the point, though: atta flour. Atta flour is the main flour used for many Indian flatbreads. It’s whole wheat, made from hard wheat, and is high in protein and fibre (lots of bran). So it’s healthy. Better yet, the stone-grinding process used to make it generally imparts a subtle roasted sweetness to the flour, so it’s got a flavour of it’s own. Tasty.
The problem is, where to get it?
No More Microwaves 