Cornmeal Savory Bread

Cornmeal Savory Bread

My oven was literally gathering dust as I have barely been using it. Apart from roasting some veggies to make pasta sauce for the kids, I have just not been using the oven. So, this holiday season, I decided to bake like I used to, if possible, get better ;)

One of my close friends likes savory breads and I wanted to make one for her. I picked cornmeal bread and adapted the recipe from bonappetit.com. I smeared a piece with cheese and it went down well with my five year old so I guess it is job well done!

Note:

1. I have reduced the number of eggs so have used more milk and also vinegar. You can skip the vinegar and increase egg to two but you may not need the water in that case. 

2. I used a mixture of middle eastern herbs. 

1 heaped teaspoon dried herbs

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 1/3 cup cornmeal flour

2 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1tablespoon baking powder

1 egg

3 tablespoon oil

1 cup yogurt, beaten

¾ cup milk

¼ cup water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

A knob of butter

Grease an 8x8inch dish with butter (I used a rather rectangular dish but was fine with it) and preheat oven to 170degC

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl

Mix all wet ingredients in medium bowl

Pour wet ingredients into dry ones and mix. Add the vinegar and mix briefly. Scrape the batter into the greased dish. The batter may be slightly thick. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Vegetabe Paratha (Malaysian Paratha!!)

Vegetabe Paratha (Malaysian Paratha!!)

Whether or not it really is Malaysian I don’t know but I love it. It is such a great way to include cabbage in our diet. The method of making the paratha, by folding it into a large rectangle, allows stuffing a good portion of the veggies making it nearer to a complete meal. Am knackered, so no more stories, just duck straight into the recipe...

1 ½ cups wholewheat flour

1 ½ cups finely chopped or grated mixed vegetable like cabbage, beans, carrot

1 green chilly, finely chopped

1 onion finely chopped

1-2 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

1 tablespoon soya sauce

1 tablespoon tomato sauce

Salt to taste

½ teaspoon chilly powder, as desired

Butter/ghee

To make stuffing:

Heat some oil and add onions and ginger garlic paste, cook until just soft and then add veggies and sauté for couple of minutes

Add the sauces, salt and chilly powder and sauté for a further couple of minutes. Finely grated or chopped veggies cook quickly so you do not have to cook this for long.

For paratha

Mix the flour with about ¾ cup warm water to make a soft dough and remember to add salt to dough. Leave to rest for atleast 30 minutes

Divide into about 4/5 balls depending on how big you want the parathas. Dust with some flour and roll into a thick chapatti. Place 2 tablespoons or even more of the stuffing in the centre and spreading it into a small square area. 

Fold up the sides of the chapatti to form a large rectangle and make sure there is bit of overlap between the folds. Roll as flat as you can

Cook both side on a medium flame and add generous drizzles of ghee or butter

Wheat and Barley Roti

Wheat and Barley Roti

I often wonder if I am over indulging in wheat, considering I eat wheat flakes for breakfast and then rotis for dinner, lunch is strictly rice though. Somehow, maybe because of my south Indian origin, it is not easy without rice for atleast one meal. Anyway, point is make conscious effort to diversify ingredients. One of those that I try to include is barley and as I am not a soup or broth person, I need to find other ways of including this grain. Barley is said to provide our gut with fibres that encourage good bacteria to thrive and thus crowd out bad bacteria. The fibre also helps keep blood sugar on check, especially for diabetics. Drinking barley water every day is said to help detox the urinary system. My grandmother would also say that barley water helps lower fever as well. It is also good for lactating mothers as it helps improve milk production. With so much goodness, how would you add this to your diet? Well, for me rotis is a viable option. I must admit that I have tried barley roti in the past but miserably failed as the flour was not the best, atleast in hindsight. It looked too fibrous and coarse. Years later, I tried to grind my own barley flour in the mixie and tried the roti and it came out well. You cannot say it has barley in it unless I tell you. Here is the recipe…

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

½ cup barley flour

Salt to taste

Oil/ghee/butter

Mix the flours together and add required salt. Add hot water (you may need about a cup) and mix to make a soft dough. Knead as much as you can and add little oil. Rest the dough for atleast an hour and divide into smaller balls

Roll each ball into chapattis and cook both sides on hot tava. Bubbles will begin to appear on bottom side, flip. Again bubbles will begin to appear, let them get bigger, keep pressing down. Then flip again aand press down, roti will puff up. Smear some ghee/butter on top

Serve warm

Wholemeal Bread

Home made Bread

Bread is probably a staple in most houses. As common as it may be in everybody’s grocery list, it is a bit of a shame that a number of additives actually go into stor brought bread. Ofcourse, same may not be the case if you buy it fresh from a bakery but as it usually has a shelf life, atleast on the label of only one day or so, I end up buying branded factory bread. It was a doctor friend of ours, a pediatrician who suggested that I start making bread and motivated me saying if I can whip up over 300 dishes on my blog, bread must be easy. When the doctor says I should rather make our own bread to avoid the additives for the benefit of the kids, there can’t be any appeal right. So I started looking up recipes and came across one on this website.

It is only by gut feel that I chose the recipe suggested in that website. Also, the fact that it does not need much kneading made it even more attractive. Anyway, when I tried the recipe, it did come out quite well but I was not quite pleased with the crust. When it comes to baking, practice alone can make one perfect so I tried a few more times. Every time  there was something to learn. I altered the oven temperature so the crust is actually better. I will strongly recommend that you try the recipe atleast twice or thrice so you know how much water works for you and also what oven temperature works for your oven. Resist cutting into the loaf soon after taking from the oven, the aroma will be difficult to control yourselves though. Anyway, here is the recipe

400g strong wholemeal flour
50g strong white flour
2 tsp easy fast action yeast
2 tsp salt
3 tsp brown sugar
400ml warm water
50g melted butter or oil

Put together the flours, yeast, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl and mix well. Add about 300 ml water. The water should be hand warm. Stir well and add the butter. Mix to form a sticky and soft dough adding more water if needed. Make sure the dough is indeed sticky, you may feel it is not quite right but that is ok.  You could do this in a food mixer with dough hook. I have done by hand as well as with mixer. The photos do not quite show how sticky the dough is, will change them to better pics when I get to it.

Tip out on to a lightly oiled work surface and knead for about 10 seconds, then put back in the bowl and cover. This kneading will help make it less sticky and more smooth. While kneading the dough, I tried to do what Paul Hollywood showed on a TV show. You are suppose to stretch the dough pressing it with your wrist and pulling it, then fold back. Repeat twice more at intervals of 10 minutes, then leave the dough to rest for 15 minutes, until it doubles.

Flatten the dough into a rough rectangle about the length of your baking tin, then roll up tightly, and put into a greased tin, with the join facing downwards. If your dough has adequate water, you should not need a rolling pin to flatten, just hand is enough. Cover and leave to rest in a warm place until it has doubled in height (at least 1½ hours). I left it near the stove as I was cooking and the warmth will help the yeast.

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Bake for about 30 minutes. You know the bread is done when you tap it in the bottom (out of the loaf tin ofcourse) and it sounds hollow. Cool completely on a cooling rack, slice and store in air tight container. I prefer to store them in fridge and warm them before eating.

Missi Roti

Missi Roti

Whether you are bored of the regular rotis or just want to substitute come of the carbohydrates in it with protein, then missi rotis are for you. It is such a delicious roti, not complicated to make and on a day of low energy or time, you could eat it with pickle and yogurt. I have pretty much fllowed Tarla Dalal’s recipe and did not have much need to change a lot. Traditionally it is fried with lots of ghee and I leave it to you whether you want to use ghee or oil, little or more. This is great for kids as well as it has carbs, protein and some greens. Here is the recipe...

1 cup besan (chickpea flour)

½ cup all purpose flour

½ cup wholewheat flour

1 generous handful of fenugreek leaves/coriander leaves, chopped

2 generous pinches of ajwain

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon oil

Warm water

1 teaspoon finely chopped green chillies (optional)

Butter/ghee to fry the rotis

Mix all ingredients except the butter/ghee together, adding just required water to make semi stiff dough. Rest the dough, covered, for 30 minutes

Divide the dough into lemon sized balls and roll to thin rotis using flour to dust

Cook both sides on hot tava, just like regular roti adding generous amount of ghee/butter. Poke it with th corner of the ladle so all the ghee gets in (yum!)

Serve with pickle and yogurt!

Palak Paratha

Palak Paratha

Few days back I had posted the recipe for palak rice/green rice. My son had been asking for it since then and last weekend we finally managed to find some palak. I was hoping he would be ok with making green chapatti instead of rice as chapatti was on the menu for the rest of us. Well, he did and I wanted to make sure it comes out well so he likes it and has it in future. I think it is important to keep recipes that kids try very simple so they first develop a liking and then we can add some twists to it after a good few times. Anyway, I decided to make it like a paratha, slightly thick but not stuffed. The use of ajwain seeds made such a big difference as it lent so much flavour to the parathas. We had it with a curry and pickle and it went down a treat. I had earlier posted recipe for spinach roti and this one is like its cousin. Here is the recipe...

2 bunches palak

1 teaspoon ginger, chopped

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 pinch ajwain

1 ½ cups wholewhear flour

Cooking oil

Blanch the palak in boiling water for couple of minutes, cool and grind to fine paste with ginger and coriander powder. Use just enough water to make a paste. You could add some sugar to the palak while blanching to keep its green colour

Take the flour in a bowl and add salt. Crush the ajwain seeds between your palm and add the same. Use the palak puree to make a soft dough and use oil at the end of kneading just to coat the dough. Rest it for about 30 minutes

Take lemon size balls and roll into rather thick parathas. Cook both sides on hot tawa and drizzle bit of oil/butter. It is the usual sequence - once the bottom sides starts bubbling, flip side, then let the bottom bubble. Then flip again, give it like 5 seconds, then press down with tea towel in hand or ladle as this will help it puff up. Drizzle oil/ghee.

Serve

Naan (no yeast, no egg, no oven)

Naan
It was my mom that had first ever told me that naan was an Indian bread and ordered it for me at a restaraunt, ofcourse years back. I remember making attempts to make naan at home in my mother’s kitchen. Usually for these unusual ventures, both me and my brother would participate and throw our ideas. We were going to allow the dough to kind of ferment by mixing it using yogurt and leaving aside for few hours. Then make thick roti and sprinkle water and make it stick to tava. Holding the tava with the handle the idea was to show the upper surface of the naan to flame. It came out well but not quite like restaurant one. In my kitchen, I tried making it with yeast and cooked it in the oven. It was ok but it came out a bit crisp on the top. I then wanted to try without yeast and this was it. Except the fact that I did not use tandoor oven, it came out very good. In some ways it was even better than restaurant because I used combination of wholewheat and refined flour. I do not think using even 50-50 each flour would not harm the naan, will still be soft. No yeast, no oven, no egg, just super good naan!

1 cup wholewheat flour
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch soda bicarbonate
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup yogurt
½ cup milk
Cooking oil

Mix all dry ingredients together and combine with wet ingredients. Add water as needed to form a soft dough. Add some oil and knead well. Keep aside for couple of hours

Divide the dough into lemon sized balls and roll to a thick roti, elongate one side to give it the teardrop shape. If using any topping like onion seeds, sesame seeds, garlic, coriander etc., do so now.

Cook one side on a hot tava, flip the side once bubbles appear. Cook second side for about 40-50 seconds, it should start browning.

Now cook on direct flame, until it puffs up and browns