Chapati time
Had a lesson in making chapatis this week…
James and Pauline came for lunch on Tuesday and I went to buy flour. This was the deal: Pauline would show me how to make chapatis and then we’d all eat them. James prowled my house hungrily while Pauline and cooked and talked about hair-styles and relationships, in the kitchen.
The recipe is deceptively simple. Just take an unspecified amount of nap hal wheat flour, add a spoonful of sugar and a pinch of salt and mix, then add an unspecified amount of warm water and knead until the dough forms a beautiful cohesive lump that has just the right consistiency. (I don’t know, practise I suppose). Leave that to rest for ten minutes (or less when there are hungry men in the house, teaching themselves to juggle and looking through all your photographs), pour over an unspecified amount of oil and knead again (or was that before resting the doung? before I think, oh heck! why didn’t I take notes?) then pull small lumps off, one at a time, and roll them out on a floured borad. For extra texture in the finished bread cover one of these with oil and roll it up, then tie the roll in a knot to form a new lump and roll that out. Then place the flat breads in a hot dry hot pan to dry them out then fry them with a little oil for an unspecified amount of time until they are done. Can be eaten immediately or stored and re-heated later.
African chapatis are thicker than Indian ones I have experienced, the knotting method gives them a layered texture and introduces more oil.
Delicious with, for example, a stew of green grams, spring onions and tomatoes (are green grams the same thing as mungbeans? Chris, do you know?) or as a snack with tea: spread with peanut butter!
I’m still enjoying the ones we made on Tuesday, it remains to be seen whether I can make them myself or whether I end up producing some pankake of my own invention.
Gram Parsons (no, Chris really) Says:
Greetings from Mungbean Central
Off the top of my head, I would imagine that "green grams" are a kind of chickpea… "Gram flour" as used in Indian cooking for the batter on pakoras etc. is chickpea flour, yes?
PS: there’s a rogue tag on this page somewhere….
May 7th, 2004 at 2:22 amLydia Says:
Yum. What will you call it if it’s a pancake of your own invention?
May 7th, 2004 at 12:41 pmSophia Says:
How long did it take you to make the chapatis?
Why are all the comments in italics?
Sophia
P.S. I am currently writing proofs for a paper, on which you gave lots of input wrt how to explain things, so I was thibking of you Mark, and decided to visit the blog. The I gotr carried away with the policits … :O :O :satisfied:
May 8th, 2004 at 8:37 pmMark Says:
There was, in deed, a rogue tag in that page; that’s why the comments were in italics. Fixed now!
Sophia, I completely understand the temptation to browse someone’s web site when there paper to write!
Will I get my name on it
May 9th, 2004 at 4:20 pmMark Says:
It took about an hour to prepare the mix, let it rest, roll and fry all the chapatis.
May 9th, 2004 at 4:22 pm