Bhatura Recipe

Deep fried leavened (baking powder and yogurt) bread made with Maida (All-purpose flour)

This is a deep fried bread from Punjab. The dough is leavened with baking powder and Dahi (Yogurt Culture). The dough is same as the dough for Kulcha.

This is normally a companion of Cholay, specially at the breakfast time.

Ingredients

1. Maida (All Purpose Flour 1 pound): 4 Cups

2. Salt: 1 teaspoon

3. Baking Powder (Double action): 1 teaspoon

4. Warm water: 1 Cup

5. Dahi Yogurt: 2 Tablespoon

6. Sugar: 1 teaspoon

Melted Ghee for rolling dough

Method

Dough

1. Mix Maida, salt, and baking powder. Sift well.

2. Mix Water, Yogurt, and milk.

3. Mix flour and water mixture to make dough. Knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes.

4. Gather the dough to form a ball. Lightly oil the ball. Cover with damp kitchen towel or a plastic film wrap. Let it rest about 2 hours at room temperature.

5. Knead the dough for about five minutes. Divide dough in to 12 equal small balls. One dough ball will make one Bhature.

Rolling dough

We need to roll dough out to form a 4" diameter disc about the thickness of a Dime (10¢ coin). How you roll the dough will also determine whether the bread will puff up evenly or not.

1. Pinch dough to make one bread and form it into a ball. Now flatten it to form a patty about 2" round. This will guide you in maintaining the round shape when using the rolling pin. Always apply rolling pin from the middle of the patty to outwards. It takes practice to roll out a round disc. If you are a novice, use a lid of coffee can and a sharp knife to form the round disc.

2. Always use rolling pin on one side of the dough. Do NOT turn the dough over and roll again, it is called re-rolling. Avoid re-rolling. If you look at the cross-section of a finished puffed flat bread, you will notice one side is thicker than the other side. The thinner side corresponds to the side which was in contact with the rolling pin. We will call it the skin surface.

Cooking

1. Preheat deep fryer to 350ºF.

2. Put the bread with skin surface over the hot oil. With a skimmer, splash some hot oil over the top of the bread. Cook about 40 seconds.

3. Turn over the bread with the skimmer. Rub the to of the bread with the skimmer. It helps puff up bread with steam. Cook one minute.