We indeed love a variety of breads. I keep trying a few in my capacity. We do not get bloating or any kind of uneasy feeling from it. I have a feeling that even material beings understand the touch of love. I come across so many recipes each day, some I save, the rest get lost. On one such day, I came across an Armenian fresh herb stuffed bread Jingalov Hats. I found it to be quite a healthy bread stuffed only with a variety of fresh herbs. The trick is in shaping the bread, oh! with what an expertise a very old lady was doing it, then sticking it in to the walls of a manual oven as part of the cooking process is something similar to tandoor was worth watching. The world bonds over food, if there is a Jingalov Hats in Armenia, there is a Methi Thepla in India. At the moment, I stand between the two and prepared a vegetarian hand rolled bread recipe METHI DHONEPATAR POROTA, shall take this stand until when I can prepare something near to that oblong shaped bread stuffed with 4-5 types of fresh herbs. As a South Asian, I may end up rubbing chilli flakes, even bhaja mosholar guro to the herbs before I do the stuffing. That oblong shape will require pretty good amount of practice. On that particular day, the moment I took the refined flour, fresh fenugreek & coriander leaves, carom & cumin seeds in the bowl, the word stuffing ran away, I ended up preparing a quick dough adding spoonfuls of ghee. I prefer cooking parathas / porota / flat bread in ghee.
By the way, I never thought my style of managing home can be so applauded by the mother. That I cook in bulk and in variety on a Saturday was finally granted as a model, likely to be followed. She said she will follow it but my brother is not my husband or the son. He is fussy about food and I blame the mother for this. I still believe and tell her because of you he could never gather the courage to leave home and explore the world, his career got a setback for that. She is getting a lot of scolding of not setting a rule for me either to be economically independent. Her text book on Julius Caesar, the one that our father used to read to her during her BeD course lay still in a book rack for 45 years now, she got lost in washing mosquito nets, taking the son to and fro from different classes; swimming, cricket, school, meting out different demands of the daughter related to food. Now, I ask her to follow my model, take enough time out to read, not religious books alone but good literature, stop watching those damaging, insensible television serials. Okay, she watches more of the live shows.
Coming to the point, she is thoroughly enjoying going out with me, specially to the wet markets, knowing local ingredients and following her mother loving to have "mishti bun ruti".... local bakery fresh buns. I may get fresh fenugreek to prepare a "methi begun" for her, may not be too eager to prepare METHI DHONEPATAR POROTA as such. I should be able to bake some cakes and breads before she leaves. I am enjoying when she says that the grandmother and my aunts are surprised to know I learnt to cook few varieties. To the family, I am still that fat & lazy girl, the fact is I am nearing menopause.
INGREDIENTS :
REFINED FLOUR : 3 COFFEE MUG
FRESH METHI / FENUGREEK LEAF : 2MEDIUM TEA CUP
FRESH DHONEPATA / CORIANDER : 1MEDIUM TEA CUP
CAROM SEED / JOYAN : 1TSP
CUMIN SEED / JEERA : 1/2TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
GHEE / CLARIFIED BUTTER : 2TBSP + 1TSP FOR EACH FLATBREAD / POROTA
PROCEDURE :
Take the refined flour, washed fresh coriander and fenugreek leaves, carom and cumin seeds in a wide mouthed bowl.
Mix well and add 2tbsp ghee / clarified butter and the salt as required to it.
Rub well for 2-3 minutes. Add water little by little and prepare a dough... smooth and firm. This may take some 10 minutes. They say using warm water to prepare a dough is a wiser idea, I am not so particular.
Cover the dough with a moist, clean cloth for 15-20 minutes. Open cover, tear off tennis ball sized portions from the dough, smoothen between your palms. There will be 10-11 standard sized balls.
Take refined flour in one bowl for dusting and ghee in another for cooking the porota.
Dust each ball with refined flour, roll out round shaped, Fold half, then again from the side.
Roll out again to give the desired triangular shape. Instead, you can keep a round shape too.
Heat a pan / tawa on stove top. Place a porota and roast well both the sides.
Add 1tsp ghee / oil and cook both sides well till brown.
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