Making Chapati

Rolling chapati & chapati served with an eggplant curry

One of the things I miss from living in a big city is the access to such a variety of ingredients. Where I live I'm unable to buy one of my favourite vegetables, bhindi (okra). This sucks. Back in Auckland I could easily buy it fresh and frozen, but here I can only find it pre-packaged in a ready-made curry. Thankfully though, the curry is delicious. So to accompany it I love to make my own chapati. Nothing beats fresh warm chapati. They are easy to make, though making them a nice round circle...not so easy. I'm slowly getting there, but I still form some duds which I pass off as awesome artistic shapes. Oh and they are good not only with curries, I love to spread jam on them to have with coffee. Yum.

Ingredients:

500g chapati flour (if you can't find this just use sifted wholemeal flour)
Approx 5 Tablespoons of oil (you could also use ghee or butter)
Salt (optional)
Approx one cup warm water

How to make em':

• Mix the flour, oil, and salt in a large bowl.
• Add the water gradually, and mix until it forms a soft workable dough. Knead it a little bit.
• Break the dough up into 6 to 10 equal sized pieces. About golf-ball shape is what I aim for.
• Dust with a bit of flour and roll them to about 8-10cm in diameter. I use a chapati roller and board, but a standard rolling pin would suffice. Don't worry so much about shape at first, just make sure the thickness is even.
• Heat an oiled frying pan until medium hot. Fry one side of the chapati until you see bubbles appear (will take just a couple minutes), then flip over and cook the other side.
• Repeat until they are all done.