Love & Lentil

Dec 2, 2010

Missi Roti and Gatte Ki Sabji

Its been a whole week plus some more after my last post. I know giving excuses is not good - but you'd probably do so too if you had a computer that turned south on you and decided that it will push the limits so much that you might want to strangle it with its own wire and throw it out of the window.

This has been in my drafts for a while now. This is a traditional rajasthani dish but with my own touches added. It is quite a heavy meal and I don't really get why they would have both the rotis and the sabji made with besan. But, hey I'm just following what was told to be the best combo.

Starting off with the Missi Rotis, this is a spiced up roti and is made with a combination on wheat flour and besan. Usually, the propotion would be 2 cups of besan to 1 cup of atta. But, I just added equal quantities of both.

So take about 1 cup of wheat flour (atta) and 1 cup of Chick Pea flour (besan). Sieve em together. Add salt to taste. Add about 1 tsp of red chilli powder. Then add 1 tsp of jeera and 1 tsp of ajwain to the flours.

Add about a couple of spoons of ghee into this and then adding water a little at a time, mix into a dough.

Like this.

Take small balls out of it and roll it into a thin chappathi. I've had missi rotis that are thick and heavy - if you want that kind.

And yes - did you like my roller? Loved it and its such an ease to roll stuff!

Cook the rotis on a tawa and add some ghee if you want to - I skipped that part..you know why.

And now for the side kick to go with the rotis. Gatte ki Sabji. If you are a Rajasthani, you'd probably never add onions to the traditional dish. But, I just wanted to kind of get the punjabi kadi thing going with the rajasthani gatte thing. Talk about mixing up cuisines. It was real good indeed and I think I'm going to be doing it this way from now on.

For the gattes, sieve about 11/2 cups of besan. Add salt to taste and red chilli powder too. I also added some jeera and dhaniya powder.

Again, add about 1 tsp of ghee to the flour mix.

Adding a little water at a time - make a thick dough out of the flour.

Then take small portions of the dough and roll into thin long pieces. And then cut the thin ones into little pieces.

Here are the small gattes. Some people cook the long strips and then cut it into small pieces. Either way is fine, I guess.

Boil water in a wide pan and when the water is bubbling, add these gattes in there. Cook for about 5 mins or until they all rise up and start swelling up a bit.

You can skip this step - but I give them a quick rinse with cold water when they are done so that they don't stick with each other and become a big ball.

Now in a pan, add a couple of spoons of oil and when hot, add mustard seeds to splutter. And then add some fresh curry leaves and a generous spray of asofoetida powder from the box - trust me, this is helpful!
Then, add the long cut onions and saute for a couple of mins.