Chapatis homemade – vegan

Making chapatis at home is much easier then you imagine, even when you are a bloody beginner. This small flat breads have a wonderful taste and the little effort to prepare them is it worth definitely! Chapatis fit well to a soup, dal, salad or with a deliciuos chutney – you can dip them, soak them, bite them and enjoy them. And if there were any leftovers, you can toast the chapatis or cut them in triangles and bake them cross in the oven. Flour, water and oil, that´s all you need. My recipe is reclined on a description from Meera Sodha and her excellent cookbook “Original Indisch”. Follow my steps:

For 16 chapatis = 4 persons. If needed, you can easily prepare half portion or doble the ingredients for more.

Ingredients

450 g Chapati whole grain flour “Atta” from your asia shop or as an alternative: 225 g whole grain flour and 225 g flour type 405

1/2 TS salt

3 SS rape oil

Preparation

Mix the flour and the salt in a bowl. Make a little “dell” in the middle of the flour and pour 3 SS rape oil in it. Now bray with your fingers the oil with the flour until you get lots of crumbles. Then pour 250 ml hot water (not boiling) in the bowl and begin to disperse the dough. Add little by little the last 50 ml hot water and disperse the dough during 6 – 8 minutes with your hands until it gets soft and smooth. Put a little bit of oil on the outside of the dough when you finish, to avoid it drying. Put the dough aside.

You should now perpare the following tools: a working platform powdered with flour, a noodle or dough role, a bowl with chapati flour in it to turn over the chapati balls, a pan, a spatula and a plate for the baked chapatis. Heat the pan on medium fire/high fire. Role the dough in form of a sausage and cut it into 16 equal parts. Form 16 balls with your hands and turn them over in the flour bowl. Press each chapati ball slightly down to a thick slice and powder the noodle role with flour. Now roll out the dough to 10 cm diameter, powder both sides of the chapati a bit and roll it out to 15 cm diameter.

When you are an experienced chapati baker, you can roll the next out while the former chapati is baking in the pan. If it´s your first time, you should prepare them all in advanced. Heat the cooker. On a skale of 0 – 3 it works well on 2,5. The pan must be really hot. Then put the first test chapati into the dry pan. No oils or fats needed. The chapati is baked dry. For electric cookers: bake the first side for 1,5 minutes until the border turns white and some bubbles show up. Then turn the chapati and bake the other side in the same way. Turn it again. Now the dough should “come up” like a big bubble. Press this bubble gently down and turn the chapati again. Same happens on the other side. When there are no more dark spots (humidity), the chapati is ready. If you work with a gas stove the whole baking process is much faster! You need 30 seconds for the first baking round and 20 seconds for the nect one. So be quiet aware and don´t chat with your friend or your chapatis will burn.

Put the baked chapatis on a plate and cover it with a cloth or put them in the oven. Bake all chapatis one by one. The first chapati normally doesn´t turn out excellent, but the second does. Because the pan must be really hot. I encourage you to give it a try. Once you´ll see how easy it is and how delicious they taste, you´ll love making them. And it´s much cheaper than buying bread! You can add anis or cilantro or chili…and make your own recipe.