HOW TO PREPARE AND COOK CHAPATI
Chapati, is a meal loved by many. From the days it used to only be a celebratory meal, as I hear from my grandma’s stories, to a meal that is enjoyed at least monthly by many these days.
This is one of the meals we all look forward to whenever there is a function aside from the pilau and meats. For sure, those are some of the things I look forward to enjoying at any function I attend.
Chapati, has been one of my best meals from when I was young. I practically enjoyed when it was cooked and couldn’t wait for it to be served, by counting the remaining number of chapati to be cooked. I remember at times having one of my aunt’s coming to cook and beg her to teach me how cook chapati. At that age, the little me, she refused, and I used to look forward to growing up fast and get to learn (growing up, I soon realized it’s not as easy as the fantasy I had when I was young, you all can relate hehe!) But finally, she agreed to teach me. But I must admit, chapati is one of the few meals that I have been taught how to prepare.
Getting into the kitchen, the chapati making process was not as easy as I thought. From making the dough, to rolling the balls and finally cooking the chapati. However, the hardest part of the whole process is rolling out the chapati rolls to make a circle. If you have ever cooked chapati before, you can relate to this moment. When you try to make perfect circular chapati but it ends up having corners making ears ??. But finally I came to the point of making almost perfect circles. I remember hearing once from a TV interview, where a chef said, that for them to make perfect circular chapati, they use circular plates and cut around the circular shape. You could try this at home.
Let’s get to the most awaited part. The whole process of making chapati.
Ingredients
1. All purpose baking flour ( I used Ajab)
2. 2 cups of warm water
3. 4 tbspn of Sugar and 1 tbspn of salt
4. 1 cup of milk
Procedure
1. Boil the water and milk together and making sure it doesn’t become too hot.
2. In a separate bowl, pour in the flour and add the sugar and salt and mix together. For every 2 tbspn of sugar add a 1/4 tbspn of salt
3. Pour in the water and milk mixture a small amount at a time while mixing the dough the same way you mix the dough when making mandazi.
4. As you make the dough, keep on adding water until the mixture is firm and soft. This allows for easier rolling of the chapati.
5. Once the dough is ready, cover with a kitchen towel and let the dough stay for sometime about 10 minutes to make it soft.
6. Then, cut the dough into four sections and roll out each section at a time.
7. Apply some oil around the rolled out chapati dough section. Then, cut the section into 4 medium sized cuts or depending on the size of your section.
8. Roll the cut portions into a ball like shape. And set it aside on a surface sprinkled with some flour. Repeat the same for all sections.
9. Set it aside and cover it for some 10 minutes again. If the flour is already soft, you can skip this step.
10. Once ready, roll out each chapati roll into an almost perfect circle or you can use the chef’s secret mentioned above. A rule on making almost perfect circles is to be relaxed. It does wonders when you are relaxed.
11. Heat a pan and place the rolled out chapati and cook one side till it forms some spots underneath and turn over to the other side. Apply some oil around the surface with spots as the other side cooks a bit. Then do the same for the other side.
12. Once you apply one side and turn it over, the other side will be cooking. Once ready, pat the chapati with a kitchen serviette to remove the excess oil from the chapati.
13. Repeat the same steps till all your chapati’s are well cooked. Once all are ready, the chapati can be served.
14. Serve the chapati with stew or some goat meat.
Have a lovely chapati eating session?
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Lovely article!..Learned alot?
Thank you ?. I am glad you enjoyed the article. I trust you will also enjoy the cooking experience