Pita bread

I have always assumed that pita bread is difficult to make. Don't ask me why.....I just always thought that it wasn't something that could easily be made at home. Until now, that is. Blogging Marathon #50 has made me tread hitherto untested waters and I must say that not only is it not difficult to make pita at home, but it is also lighter and tastier than the store bought, preservative laden version.

Pita bread, hummus and falafel  - a complete meal

What you need:
Flour - 3 cups *(see note)
Instant yeast - 2 tsp
Salt - 1.5 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Lukewarm water - 1 to 1.5 cups

In a large mixing bowl, bring together the flour, yeast, salt and sugar. Add water, a little at a time, until it forms a sticky mass. Add in the oil and transfer to your counter top. Knead well for at least ten minutes and for up to 12 minutes. By then, you will notice that the dough has become smooth, non sticky and pliable. Transfer to an oiled bowl and keep aside covered for 2 hours. The dough will puff up nicely even though it may not double. Punch the dough down, divide it into eight equal balls, cover and keep aside for half an hour. During this time, pre heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Roll the dough into a circle of roughly 6-7 inches and arrange as many of the circles as you can on the back of a cookie sheet. Bake for 4 minutes. The pita should puff up beautifully somewhere between 3 and 4 minutes. Even if it doesn't, don't fret too much about it, because it will still taste just as good.

Pita - hot off the oven

 Remove from the oven and serve warm with hummus and falafel to make a complete meal.

*Note : I have use a combination of 2 cups of wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour. You may choose to use only APF, only Wheat flour, or any ratio that adds up to a total of 3 cups.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM 

Flour tortillas and vegetable fajitas

One of our favourite things to order at a Mexican restaurant nearby is their vegetable fajita. Fresh grilled vegetables, Spanish rice, refried beans,sour cream, guacamole and salsa are served with soft, freshly made tortillas and can be, based upon the individual's taste, be assembled at the table to make a wrap.
In my home made version, I have skipped the beans, guacamole and rice because I didn't have the ingredients for them on hand, but these fajitas were just as good the way we had them.
Until recently, I thought that all tortillas were made with corn flour. Only while looking for flat breads to make for the Blogging Marathon did I find out that in certain parts of Spain they make flour tortillas using All purpose flour. I have made mine with equal parts of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. The authentic tortilla uses lard or shortening, which I have skipped and used a teaspoon of oil instead.

What you need:

 For the tortilla :
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tsp
Warm water - as needed

In a large mixing bowl, take the flours and salt. Add water, a little at a time, and knead into a pliable, smooth dough. Mix in the oil and knead. Cover and set aside for an hour.

To make tortillas :
Pinch out golf ball sized balls of dough and roll into a circle. Cook on a hot griddle until the bottom starts to brown. Turn over and cook until the tortilla puffs up a little and the other side also gets brown flecks. Store in a tortilla warmer or wrapped in a clean kitchen towel.

For the vegetable mix :
Mixed diced vegetables - 1 cup (I used green bell pepper, yellow and orange sweet peppers, carrot, beans, peas and corn)
Onion - a small one, diced
Garlic - 2 cloves, minced
Butter or oil - 1 tbsp
Salt
Lemon juice (optional)

Heat butter or oil in a sauce pan. Add the garlic and onion. Saute over high heat until slightly browned. Add in the rest of the vegetables and salt to taste. Stir well over high heat for a minute or two. Transfer to an oven safe dish. Grill at 450 degree Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes or until the vegetables look slightly charred and develop a smoky flavor. Squeeze some lemon juice over this if desired and set aside.

For the fajita :
Tortillas
Vegetable mix
Salsa
Sour cream

To assemble the fajita :
 Heap some of the mixed vegetables onto a tortilla. Spread a generous helping of sour cream and salsa over it. Roll up and enjoy!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM

Focaccia Caprese

We are already three months into this new year. Yet, this is my first post of the year. Despite intentions to the contrary, the blog has ended up being neglected. As always, the Blogging Marathon is what I've relied on to bring some action back into the blog. This time round, I've chosen to blog on flat breads from around the world for three days. By choosing this particular bread, I am also able to tick off one of the breads from the list of breads that the We Knead to Bake group has chosen to bake.
Focaccia is an Italian flat bread and Caprese refers to something that comes from Capri - an island off the coast of Italy. The topping on a focaccia caprese is tomatoes, fresh buffalo mozzarella and basil. I have made some changes to the original recipe, the major one being that I have used whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour, and the minor ones being the use of Italian seasoning mix in place of dried oregano and the use of grated mozzarella and parmesan in place of slices of buffalo mozzarella.

What you need:
For the dough :
Whole wheat flour -  3.5 cups
Instant yeast - 2 tsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Oil - 1/8 cup (Original recipe calls for 1/4 cup)
Lukewarm water - 1 to 1.5 cups

For the topping:
Tomato - 3-4, sliced into thin circles
Grated mozarella and parmesan - 1/4 cup
Parsley - some, chopped fine

For the herb oil :
Oil - A little less than 1/4 cup
2 large cloves of garlic minced
Italian seasoning mix - 2 tsp
Mix these ingredients together and set aside.

To make the dough :
Take the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add water, a little at a time and mix to form a pliable dough. Add oil and knead well. Let this rest in a well oiled bowl until doubled in volume. This took approximately two hours.

Divide the dough into two parts. Roll out each part roughly into a rectangle of 11" by 7". I patted it out into a rectangle by hand, to give it a rustic look. Transfer on to a baking tray and let it rise for 20 minutes. Drizzle some oil over it and give it a dimpled look using your fingers.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 - 20 minutes or until the focaccia starts to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and drizzle the herb oil over the focaccia. Arrange the tomato slices evenly over it and sprinkle some grated cheese and some chopped parsley on top. Top with some more of the herb oil and bake again at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 5-8 minutes until the cheese just melts. Remove from the oven and top with some more fresh chopped parsley.

Cut into slices/wedges and serve while hot.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM

Kerala style porotta - Step by step pictorial

Nope....it is not a spelling mistake. We are not talking about a paratha here. Nor is it called barotta. If you want to say it mallu ishtyle, please say po...ro....tta. In some parts of Kerala, it also goes by the name parotta.
A parotta is a layered flatbread usually made with maida and lo.....ts of time and patience. If you plan on visiting Kerala, please do try this out from a thattukada. A thattukada is God's own country's version of a fast food joint. It is simply a food cart on wheels and the food served is fresh, hot, made to order and always delicious....as long you don't really ask questions to find out where the water is from and how well the plates are washed.
As long as I lived with my parents, I didn't visit a thattukada......simply because thattukadas operate only at night, and at that time, you don't see girls/women standing around these places and eating. So, even though we had one very close to our home and I was always tempted by the tantalizing smells, I have never gone there. The place would always be crowded with mundu(dhoti) clad "gentle"men. This changed when I moved to a different town for my higher studies and started living in a hostel. One of the first things I did is visit a thattukada at night. The sense of freedom and daring I experienced is something that cannot be described with mere words. To date, the best parotta and peas curry I have had is at these thattukadas.
I tried recreating a healthier version of parotta using multi grain flour instead of maida, and the result was good, though I missed the camaraderie of my hostel mates and the luxury of having someone else make this for me.

What you need:
Multi grain flour - 2 cups, heaped (Can be substituted with maida(APF)/whole wheat flour)
Oil - 3tbsp+1tsp+1tbsp
Salt
Water

Mix together the maida and salt. Add water little by little and knead into a smooth, pliable dough. Add 3 tbsp of oil and knead well. Rub one tsp of oil all over the dough to prevent it from drying out. Cover and let it stand for atleast an hour.
Take 1 tbsp of oil in a flat/shallow plate.
Pinch out a ball of dough. Flatten it slightly between your palms and then roll it out. Do not dredge in flour while rolling. Instead,dip your fingers in the oil and spread it over the rolled dough and continue rolling it out. The idea is to S-T-R-E-T-C-H the dough as much as you can and make it as thin as you can. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle at this point.

If you look at the pic above, you will see that the counter top is visible through the rolled out dough. That is how thin you have to roll it out.
Next, we start folding the dough into pleats from one end to the other. It is similar to making pleats on a sari.The picture will explain how it is done.

After the pleats are made, start rolling the pleated dough into a ball, starting from one end.

Once rolled, keep it covered until all the dough is rolled up similarly.
When I had rolled up all the dough into balls, I kept them on the plate in which I'd taken oil so that the oil wouldn't be wasted, plus, my dough wouldn't dry out.

Now, take one ball at a time and flatten it out into a thick circle.

Heat a tawa. Cook both sides of the parotta on it, until it develops brown spots on both the sides.
Once you have cooked a few parottas, hold them between your hands and crush sideways. Do this gently, as our aim is only to separate the layers, not to break the parotta into pieces.

Serve hot with peas curry.

The making of an Onion Kulcha

Flat breads in the form of rotis and parathas make an appearance in my home quite often. However,making naan is something I have shied away from after a disastrous trial a few years back. So whenever the craving for naan or any of its variants hits me, I take the easy way out and either eat out or get take-away...
A few days back, though,I decided to try my hand at making onion kulchas.....the results were encouraging enough to make me want to try out other versions of this very adaptable bread.

What you need:

For the dough:
All purpose flour/maida - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Active dry yeast - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Warm water - enough to knead the flour into a smooth dough

To make dough:
Soak yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water for 10 minutes or until it is completely dissolved. Mix the flours and salt together. Add the yeast mixture to this and then add warm water a little at a time and knead into a smooth pliable dough. Cover and let it stand for a few hours. The volume of the dough will double in about 4-6 hours. Punch it well and knead again and set aside until you are ready to make kulchas.

For the filling :
Large red onions - 2, chopped very fine
Tomato sauce - 1tsp
Chilli sauce - 1 tsp
Salt - a little
Oil - 3 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp

To make filling:
Heat oil. Add onions and saute until brown. Stir in all the other ingredients...stir well and remove from heat. Set aside.

To make kulchas:
Take a medium sized ball of dough. Using a rolling pin, flatten it into a small circle. Spoon some of the filling into this circle and close it and shape into a ball again with your hands. Roll out into a thick circle. Fold this in half so you get a semi-circle and spread it slightly with the rolling pin. Now fold it into a triangle and spread again with the rolling pin to make a thick kulcha.
Heat a tawa/griddle. Transfer the rolled out kulcha onto that. Cook until you see a few bubbles form on the top of the kulcha. By this time, the bottom should have turned golden brown. Turn over and cook for a minute or two.
Serve hot with any curry of your choice.

Kulcha with baby potatoes - Njoy!!!

This is my entry to Srivalli's Roti Mela.