THE MAKEOVER OF HUMBLE FLAT BREAD - INDIAN ROTI OR PARANTHA .

The flat bread, our humble roti is the most staple food item in Indian kitchen. I do not think, there is any household in India, who does not have roti in one of the day's meal. Many a times, these rotis are left. 

The mommies do magic with these left over rotis. The reasons may be different but the basic intention is to use them to satisfy family's taste buds and  avoid wastage of  food. 

We used to live in a small university town in Haryana in my childhood. The university campus was away from the main city and  no vendors  like vegetable, chaat - papdi , ice cream etc.  were allowed to enter the university campus. For most of our daily needs, we used to go to the city market.  

During one of those times, when papa was out of station and I and my sister wanted to have papri chaat, mom served us a plate full of tasty papri chaat. We find it better than the chat papri which we used to have at a shop where papa used to take us. It was inside the nagori gate market and at the end of that road. It was in a big "ahaata" / courtyard which had a big peepal tree at the centre. The tree was so huge that it has covered most of the space of the courtyard. Many years later, mommy told us that it was not papri but dried chapati which she made hard by keeping it on a hot griddle for a long time. 

Another tasty dish from my mom's kitchen was लपेट made out of leftover roti and vegetables (spicy dry potato or chana masala or rajmah)  with freshly cut onion, spinach, tomato from the kitchen garden. The लपेट  means covering. When Domino's and other forgien food brands entered Indian markets, I came to know that what my mommy offered us as humble लपेट is now being sold as "wraps" and sold at a premium. :P Both means the same - a covering. There is so much similarities, thousands of miles apart in foods.

Another interesting use of the humble chapati came was shared by a dear friend of mine, Preeti. She used to make pizza with chapati as base when her children were young. They used to eat all the vegetables on pizza but otherwise were very fussy vegetable eaters. She used to make roti pizza with lots of vegetables and cheese which children really enjoyed. 

 

Roti Poha by Preeti

Another incarnation of roti shared by Preeti is "roti poha". Grind the equal number of leftover roti and bread slice in mixie. Now instead of poha, use these crumbs and folllow the usual procedure.

Roti churma laddoo is a very popular dish in rajasthan and specially relished in winters. 

Another  friend who loves to experiment is Chetna. She had shared that she makes many dishes from leftover chapaties but chapati sandwitches and chapati upma are the most popular items with her children. I found this desi makeover of bread sandwitch very interesting. Make a filling of your choice and use chapati as covering, cook on hot girdle (tawa) with ghee and a tasty new dish is ready to eat.