Horribly Misshapen but Still Delicious Roti Chanai

Ever had someone tell you that Jesus loves all the little children, even the ugly ones?

All childhood scarring aside, that's how I feel about this roti. I kneaded and put all my love into it, and then Montreal's environment and my horribly cold hands didn't get along with the gluten in the dough. So it didn't stretch properly...no matter (you're actually supposed to throw it against the counter-ytop to stretch it...there's a technique - and video instructions), I just took it and stretched it by hand, and so instead of having beautiful cracked layers after folding it over itself twice, I had a single, thick layer of doughy goodness. Wrap it around some eggplant, some fennel, some sambhar, some dahl, some squash - the options are endless - and you almost forget about how poorly you (I) made it. Until the squash starts oozing out of the holes in the dough. Ah well, that's the fun of it.

The recipe is from my favourite cooking podcast/show, Poh's Kitchen. I'm a little in love with Emmanuel, the adorable Frenchman, but this Kuala Lumpur Chef is also pretty good. He teaches Poh how to throw roti which, in my opinion, makes him a hero. I am not as good a good pupil as Poh, but the chef did not make my dough for me either...

Ingredients:

makes makes 8-10 roti

500g plain flour (best to weigh, because this isn't exactly 2 cups. I used whole wheat because I realized as I started that that was all I had. Probably affected my throwing ability for the worse...)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 cup water

2 tbsp condensed milk (I use very evaporated almond milk. It theory it should be the same consistency, but really it isn't. Maybe that's why it didn't work out perfectly for me...but that's just an excuse)

2 tbsp margarine (or oil), at room temperature

1/2 egg, lightly whisked

Extra margarine

Extra vegetable oil

1. Combine flour, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Make a well at the centre of the dry ingredients and into it, pour the water, condensed milk, margarine and egg. 

2. Work in a circular motion with your hand, gradually gathering more and more of the flour into the wet ingredients until you more or less have a single mass. 

3. Tip all the ingredients onto the bench and knead until smooth and elastic (ambiguous elasticity terms don't help me very much, Poh...). Roll into a cylinder and divide the dough into ten pieces. Knead each piece a few times to achieve a smooth texture, then shape into a ball. Gently cover each ball with margarine and rest in a bowl alongside but not on top of another. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest in room temperature, overnight.

4. After the overnight resting you will find the dough soft and stretchy (um...it was pretty stretchy). Now the fun part begins. Start by oiling a substantial area of the bench liberally. Place one of the balls of dough onto the table and press down with the palm of your hand while moving it in a circular motion. This is just to flatten and smooth out the surface of the dough as much as possible before you stretch it. It takes a bit of practice to throw the roti the professional way and while it's definitely quicker, an equally effective method is to work around the edges of the circle of dough, gently stretching the edges outwards as far and as thinly as you can (so it's like tracing paper and about 60 to 70 centimetres in diameter), and before holes start to appear (best to follow the video instructions but expect to fail...at least if you're me)

5. Fold a third of the way in on either side of the circle, so you have three layers of roti on top of each other, then fold this elongated shape into thirds again, so you end up with a squarish shaped roti. Heat up your frypan on high heat with a dash of vegetable oil and pan-fry the roti until golden blisters appear on both sides. Let it cook 3-4 minutes. If it takes longer your pan isn't hot enough. Mine always seemed to take longer, and they were so thick I felt that I had to turn them over, but I liked them crisper this way. I tried the smashing thing below once and it kind of squished in a little and then came back out as if nothing had happened. Kind of like yelling at someone and getting no reaction. It's really unsatisfying. Not that I yell at a ton of people or anything.

When cooked, immediately slide the roti onto a chopping board, wrap your palms around the edges and smash your hands together so the roti bunches up and flakes. Rotate the roti and do this several times while it is still hot. Yeah, that didn't work for me...it was still delicious. Serve immediately.

Tip: Before each fold, gently smear a small dollop (about a quarter of a teaspoon) of margarine onto the roti. This will prevent the layers from sticking and help the roti cook more evenly. (For this to matter, you're going to need to throw it properly. I figured that since it didn't stretch properly and tons of holes appeared it wouldn't matter if I folded the gnarled ends over without a little more margarine. I suppose that's giving up, but no one at my kitchen table minded. Go figure. Maybe I'll invite more than just myself to dinner next time...).

"Heartsmart Cooking": Multigrain Yogurt Bread

I'm currently obsessed with the sourdough bread from the Plateau Sunday Market. This is not it. This is the bread I turned into quasi-hamburger buns for my last post. It's still pretty great.

It's at the point where I want to ask "Son Boulanger" from "La Perle et Son Boulanger" at the market for some of his sourdough starter to make my own version of his magnificent bread. Making starter is a three-day process I will soon embark on, but the other day I wanted bread and it was Friday, and that's two whole days before Sunday. What's a girl to do?

Yes, I could go to Première Moisson where the bread is also amazing (but not quite as amazing) and buy a loaf, but that felt like cheating on my "boulanger", even if he does belong to the Pearl. So I made my own. There's something really nice about making your own bread. The kneading, the patience to let it rise, the baking...I was mostly convinced when I found a recipe that called for yogurt since I need to use up my kilogram of yogurt by the time I leave for Toronto this Friday.

So practicality and desire came together in the form of multigrain bread.

1 cup buckwheat flakes (or rolled oats. I just happen to have buckwheat because I'm like that)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ground fennel seeds (or anise. Is there a difference? There must be, but I don't know it. If you don't like the black licorice flavour, skip it)
2 tsp cane sugar
1/2 cup warm water
2 packages dry yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 4 cups of whole wheat, which is bad, but probably better than trying to use my latest gluten-free flour blend)
1/2 cup wheat bran or oat bran (or a mix of both)
Water and salt to glaze (or egg)

Plus honey and jam and things to serve (above: blueberry honey and apple butter), or toast the bread for hamburger buns.

This was just plain fun. It took forever, but I had the time.

I combined the buckwheat oats and cornmeal in a large bowl and stirred in the water, salt, oil, honey and ground fennel (I even ground my whole fennel seeds in my mortar and pestle. Yes, that was a little self pat on the back...but I so wish I had a coffee grinder. I live down the road from Canadian Tire but I'm stubbornly waiting to find one at a yard sale for even less. Apparently when Quebecers move they take their coffee grinders with them. They'll leave a brand new DVD player, expensive appliances, pots, pans, and juicers, but a grinder goes with them.

Then I set the mixture aside to let it cool for 20 minutes while I worked with the yeast.

I had one package of dry yeast and one package of dry instant yeast. These are not the same things. You add the instant yeast to dry ingredients, not to warm water, but the non-instant yeast needs to froth and bubble in warmth for 10 minutes. I also messed this step up. You're supposed to dissolve the sugar in the water first, then sprinkle the yeast over top. I added the sugar last and stirred it in. I didn't know if it was okay to stir the yeast but then I saw a TV show later that instructed you to do just that anyway. I breathed easier. What I don't know about bread could fill a book. Unfortunately, no one would buy it.

My yeast bubbled up, though, merrily. It got frothy and kept popping up like gnocchi out of the water, except the result looked like the top of a cappuccino, not pasta. Both are Italian, so both are good.

In the 10 minutes this whole bubbling thing took I mixed the whole wheat flour with the wheat bran and the instant yeast. It really didn't take 10 minutes, though, so I did some thumb-twiddling while I was at it.

Then I stirred the frothy yeast and added it to the buckwheat-cornmeal mixture. I plopped in the cup of yogurt and the whole wheat flour mixture and stirred it gently together. It was supposed to get to the point where it didn't stick to my hands, but that didn't happen. So I added a bit more flour...and it almost happened...I kind of sort of tried to knead for 10 minutes, but that didn't really happen either since it was all sticking to my hands.

Well...

I put the dough in my big oiled bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. Into the oven on the lowest possible heat with the door slightly open for 1 1/2 hours. It doubled! Miracle of miracles it actually doubled in size like it was supposed to! Usually bread only needs one package of yeast so the two packages must have been working well.

So to thank it for doubling I punched it down. I divided it in half and put one in a loaf pan and one onto a baking sheet to make a country loaf like I'd recently seen someone much better at bread than me do. The pans were lightly oiled too, just like they were supposed to be. Now that my bread had risen I didn't want to mess anything else up and ruin my good luck.

I covered it again with plastic wrap (loosely) and it let it rise for an hour.

It actually rose again! It was going to be voluminous bread! But then when I took the plastic wrap off and brushed with the glaze it started deflating. Oh no! The oven was preheating since the bread had been in there only at low to rise. What do I do? What COULD I do? Cry a little inside was about all.

When the oven preheated to 400 I put in the loaves and baked for about 45 minutes, until the centre of the bread registered 190 Fahrenheit on a meat thermometre. It was funny...my thinner baking sheet  loaf didn't cook as fast as my loaf pan loaf for some reason. The loaf pan temperature shot up on my meat thermometre but the country-style loaf took its time and even needed an extra 5 minutes. I have no idea how this is possible. Well, I took the breads out, let them cool, and enjoyed the wonderful whole wheat chew of Première Moisson flour in my under-risen but still delicious, homemade bread.

No one is going to complain about this bread.

Naan, take 2: Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking

I've come a long way since the last time I made naan...about 3 weeks ago.

I have subsequently learned to knead. Since my last naan didn't rise properly, I figured I should go out of my way to figure out this leavened bread business. People have been making it successfully for a long time. I too can be one of these chosen people.

I took the same recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's "Indian Cooking", avoiding the more difficult recipe I heard about in a prominent Vancouver chef's self-titled "Vij's".

This time I didn't overheat the milk, being scared to kill the rising agents in the yeast. The mixture of sugar, yeast and milk got properly frothy in a wide-rimmed bowl. the only change I made to the recipe (intent on not messing up) was adding almond breeze instead of yogurt to the dough mixture of sifted flour, salt and baking powder, sugar, yeast mixture, oil and egg. Oh, I used extra-virgin olive oil instead of vegetable oil because my budget is tight so I only buy one type of oil...obviously olive wins. A splurge on good olive oil is better than a bunch of different flavourless oils anyday. Well it's not entirely true that all I have is olive oil...I do have sesame oil for high-heat sauté-ing, but I certainly wasn't going to put that in naan...what am I? A high-end Toronto fusion restaurant? Certainly not.

Anyway, the dough didn't really want to form into a ball like the recipe seemed to imply it happily would, but I didn't want to add too much extra liquid, so I got it to a point that seemed manageable and started the kneading process. I'm a slow kneader, being a novice, and had to judge its readiness more by the "smooth and satiny" feel than by the approximation of 10 minutes of pulling, stretching, lifting, folding, rotating and repeating.

I rolled the ball in oil and left it to rise in the oven on the lowest temperature, covered with plastic wrap, and waited.

An hour and a half later, preheating my broiler was a disaster waiting to happen. My neighbours hate me. Mostly they hate my fire alarm, which goes off without fail every time the broiler is used. But I preheated it anyway. I swear my oven is clean so it's not burning crumbs. Who knows why that alarm goes off? Anyway, I punched down all that wonderful risen dough and kneaded again...except it didn't say how long this time. Once? What does that mean? Or another 10 minutes? That's a big difference! I went with about 8 minutes of my slow kneading and then divided the dough into 6 balls. Keeping 5 of them covered I rolled the 6th into a...well, I'm not going to lie, it wasn't so much "tear-shaped". It was flat and thin enough, approximately the called-for 10" in length and 5" in width. I wasn't too concerned.

Then the most fun part: Slapping the naan onto the hot baking pan that's been sitting in the oven getting all warmed up. Apparently this is done because naan is traditionally cooked by slapping it on the side of a traditional tandoor oven. It sticks to the clay and cooks while the rest of your food cooks in the oven. Since all us suckers who don't own a tandoor have all this free space in our disappointingly normal ovens, we can just slap the naan onto a baking sheet to recreate the fun of the real thing. Not a bad second-best.

I put the pan in the middle of the hot oven for 3 minutes and then moved it up to the broiler for 30 seconds while I was rolling out the next naan.

See, the problem, and beauty, or naan is that it puffs up when baked, so when you put the baking sheet so close to the broiler, it has a tendency to reach out to the element like a child reaching for a shiny object. And like a child, it got burned. Actually, hopefully unlike a child, it lit on fire...just a little. This was before the smoke alarm went off, though, so at least I was only dealing with one situation at a time. I can't imagine having a child to take care of at the same time. I have a lot of respect for mothers who make naan in a non-tandoor oven with a renegade fire alarm...

Anyway, it was only slightly charred, which is actually kind of desirable with naan...and all the others puffed up without lighting on fire...so 5 out of 6 ain't bad.

I did remember, through all this, to wrap the fresh naan in a dish towel to keep them warm while the rest were cooking...

and the result? Not bad. Doughy, sweet, crisp outside. I'm not yet worthy of calling it a total success, but I feel like I'm getting somewhere good.

Next post: what I needed the naan for - scooping up Saag (my own variation on calalloo) and Lohbia aur khumbi (black-eyed beans with mushrooms).