Monday 16 July, 2012

Project Roti

This is a post dedicated to the art of making Rotis/Chappatis/Phulkas;whatever you want to call them. Think of the nice wheatish round soft rotis that our mums' make everyday. Something that a typical Indian Meal is incomplete without (read north indian.. south indian meals typically consists of rice only). Until today I din't even think of the effort that goes into making something circular like that.
I was asked to lend a helping hand in the kitchen today, in the hope that I will eventually learn to cook a meal or two by myself;considering the fact that girls of my age should have mastered the art of cooking by now.  Better late than never, I decided to emabark on this journey into the kitchen. (Trust me it is a journey).Let me be very frank in admitting that while most woman find cooking therapeutic I have not come to experience the therapeutic powers of cooking until now( I think i need to enter the kitchen more often to see this miracle to occur). 
Starting with the kneading of the dough, there is this perfect proportion of the flour and water that needs to be used. I hate making it. Pour too much water and then it gets watery.Pour less and it just stays dry. Not to mention how annoying it is when the dough enters your nails. Takes forever to clean them :| 
Once the dough is ready you need to roll them into tiny balls of the right size.The roti can't be very tiny or very big either. And then heat the tawa for a while before cooking the rotis/chappati s on them ..And then starts the task of making the actual roti.Someone once said I am in shape, round is a shape.I am sure it was dedicated to a roti :P . No matter how hard I tried the was anything other than round. The fist couple of Rotis was amoeboid in shape :| but then I kept telling my self the shape doesn't matter its just the taste and after all they are simply going to tear and eat it.But then it started resembling maps of various countries and that is when I thought, this cannot be happening, they need to resemble rotis and not clay doughs children play with. 
So in an effort to make that perfect roti, after spending a lot of time in the heat they started resembling badly drawn circles :) And then put them on the tawa touch it with bare hands to turn them to the other sand. Concentrate on the rotis put on tawa while simultaneously making circular looking rotis requires quite a bit of multi taking!! Finally after about 30 mins I was done making them.
They werent so perfect but nevertheless they started resembling rotis when folded in half and they did taste good :)It gives me immense pleasure in announcing the successful completion of project Roti. 

Cheers !