Roti Bread. A true story.

JoeV

Dough Boy
Site Supporter
So it's Good Friday and I'm being a good mackeral snapper by making up some tuna salad for lunch. Bread....hmmmmmmm...white? Honey whole wheat? 100% Whole wheat? Wheat sandwich rolls? Wow! lots to choose from when you're the Dough Boy and teh freezer is full of breads for Easter. But I have a taste for a wrap, not a conventional sammie today. So, off to cyberspace I trek and Google "Flatbreads." Lots of choices, but some of them require yeast and a 1 hour proof time. ROTI! Ah, I've had that before and liked it, so I check out the video on Manjula's Kitchen, and see that it I can have homemade flatbread in about 20 minutes....if I hustle.

Before I go any further, I must say that if you try Manjula's recipe as she dictates it in her video, you will feel as thought you are a dismal failure because you are doing everything like she does, using the same ingredients, and your dough looks like shit and is so sticky you have to go out back and have someone hose you down. Why? Because Manjula, in her zeal to give you all the information you need to produce Roti, has gotten confused and tells you to use 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water. Like the dutiful soldier that I am, I listen to her and not my inner Dough Boy who is screaming "HEY DUMMY! THAT'S 100% HYDRATION AND YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE FLOUR SOUP." Flour soup is whaat I got, and what you will also if you listen to her. Watch the video and you will see that the measuring cup for the water is HALF the size of the one for the flour. Therefore, if you use 1/2 cup of flour, only use 1/4 cup of water and you will get good results. I, your local Dough Boy, learned this one the hard way, and just threw the sticky mess in the garbage can and started over. Back to the story...

Not being one to pay real close attention all the time (read above), I started out making Roti's with 1/4 C of bread flour, 1/4 C of stoneground wheat flour, a pinch of salt (actually about 1/4 t ) and 1/4 C warm water. The dough came together just like in the video, I rested it, made dough balls, heated a skillet to pretty hot, and promptly ruined the first Roti when the nylon spatula melted to the too hot pan. I looked at the smelly mess (melting nylon spatulas stink pretty good) and just started to LMAO. Spatula and first roti go into the garbage can (to bond with the wet dough), and Doughy Joey is off to the garage to take a wire wheel to the pan to get the melted nylon off the pan (SOS pad was not budging it). Once the pan was restored it was back to attempt to salvage the last three roti, and to finally feed myself the lunch I so longed for. So I rolled out the next roti (notice the shiny STEEL spatula in the corner of the picture?)...

Roti-1.jpg


Baked it in the newly restored pan...

Roti-2.jpg


And managed to save all three roti's for my lunch.

RotiwithTuna.jpg


I just turned them into roll-ups because I didn't want any more surprises by trying to split and fill the only bread I had for my lunch.

RotiRollups.jpg


They were actually quite good, so now I'm going to attempt to make some hummus and some more roti's later on when the kids come home from the Cleveland Indian's Home Opener. They all like hummus, and I need some more practice at the roti's.

FYI, you just can't make this shit up. You really have to live it and have a sense of humor in the kitchen. Otherwise you'll go nuts.
 
Top