Oven Free Tandoori Roti (Wheat Flatbread)

Time and again I have mentioned my love and influence of Delhi in my dishes through my various recipes. I have always given recipes for North Indian curries but never provided details for the Tandoori Rotis to accompany with it. But yesterday I made it a point to click pictures and put in writing the recipe for Tandoori Roti. But before we begin with the method and preparation how can I not provide a bit of historic touch to the famous tandoori roti background.

As we all know there are many variations to roti's available in India. We have tandoori roti, naan, lacchha paratha, kulcha and so on. All have one thing in common which is all require clay oven for cooking. This particular Clay Oven is very tactically kept at a perfect temperature for its inside walls to hold the roti's while they are being cooked in it. The bhattiwala (a designated person who is incharge of the oven) very tactfully places the uncooked flatbread on his wet cushioned cloth. He then presses the roti on the cushion to get it enough wet and then with the help of cushion (cushion acts as an oven mitt) pats the roti's wet side onto the wall of the tandoor oven. Once the roti starts bubbling and appears to be cooked, he then with an iron rod pokes the roti and pulls it out of the oven. After which he then applies butter on it and serves it hot with the curry.

Tandoori Roti is usually made out of whole wheat flour which is stone grounded and readily available in any Indian Household. But with the times changing and demand for new there have been variations of flour used. Some use millet, jowar or even maize, whereas Naan is made out of Maida (All purpose flour). I tried using whole wheat flour as its healthy and not too bloaty.

Ingredients:

4 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 tsp Sugar

1 tbsp Baking Powder

1 cup Curd

2 tbsp Oil

Water (For kneading)

Salt to Taste

Method:

In a mixing bowl add all dry ingredients and mix them well. Make sure to remove any lumps from the flour. 

Add Curd to the mixture and mix it well throughout the flour. We need to make sure every ingredient is mixed well and that every bit has each ingredient. 

Now slowly start adding water and knead it into a soft dough. 

Add 1 tbsp oil while kneading, it helps in forming a soft dough. Knead the dough well and once its ready add another tbsp of oil and cover the dough with cling wrap and let it sit for 1 hour.

After an hour uncover the dough and knead it once again nicely. 

Now make golf ball size portions and with the help of your palms smoothen then into nice round balls.

Keep tawa on medium to high flame to heat it well.

Meanwhile the tawa is heating up, take one ball and with the help of some dry flour and a rolling up start rolling rotis. We need the roti to be thick hence do not make it into a thin roti.

With the help of your palm start applying water on the rolled roti. Make sure to cover edges evenly with water and center too.

Once done doing that, take the dry base of the roti on your hand and flip the wet base on the hot tawa (gridle).

Make sure to press the roti on tawa so that it sticks well on the tawa. 

Once bubbles appear on the roti hold the tawa handle and flip the tawa on the flame and try cooking evenly on all edges.

Because the water is applied to the roti, it won't fall of the tawa.  

Once the all sides are cooked well, with the help of spatula scrape the wet side of the roti and remove it from tawa. 

Cut it in half, apply butter and serve hot with curry.