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Bhatura Indian flat-bread Recipe (Bhature is plural of Bhatura)

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

This deep-fried bread is from Punjab, normally served with curried chickpeas (Cholay) for breakfast.

The leavening principle in making Bhatura, Kulcha, or American buttermilk-biscuit is same. The lactic-acid in the yogurt reacts with baking soda to make dough light and rise. The baking powder helps continue the leavening during cooking.

Ingredients

1. Maida (All-purpose un-bleached Flour 1 pound): 4 Cups

2. Salt: ¼ teaspoon

3. Baking soda: ¼ teaspoon

4. Baking Powder: 1 teaspoon

5. Sugar: ¼ teaspoon

6. Ghee: 2 Tablespoon

7. Dahi Yogurt: ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons

Melted Ghee for rolling dough

Oil for deep frying

Method

Dough

1. Mix Maida, salt, baking soda, and baking-powder. Sift well. Set dry-mix aside

2. Mix Yogurt, ghee, and sugar. Beat well. Set liquid-mix aside

3. Add liquid-mix to dry-mix to make dough. Knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes.

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

Rolling dough

1. Press each dough ball into a thick 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 cookie. If you are a novice, use a lid of coffee can and a sharp knife to form the round cookie.

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. Re-rolling my prevent uniform puffing by steam. 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. The thinner surface is called skin.

Cooking

1. Preheat deep-fryer to 350ºF.

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

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

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