SIMPLY CHAPATI

It was curry night in our house again last weekend and with a slow cooked veggie "butter chicken" on the go I had a bit of time on my hands to have a go at making some bread to serve alongside it. I'd tried making naan bread before so I thought I'd give another Indian bread a whirl, chapatis! They are so simple to make especially as there is no yeast involved which can be so hard to work sometimes. All you need is some flour, salt, oil, water, a super hot griddle pan and just over an hour of your time and you'll have 8 fabulous flat breads for the dinner table.

Now normally chapatis are made with specific chapati flour and if you can get hold of 250g of the stuff for this recipe then great. If like me your making your chapatis on a whim and can't get your hands on chapati flour do as I have done and use 125g of plain wheat flour and 125g of plain white flour. If push comes to shove you can use 250g of just plain white flour however you might find the chapatis will be slightly more doughy than they should be so just make sure they are cooked through properly before serving.

Onto the ghee. I make a lot of curries so I have a pot of ghee ready to go in my cupboard. Again, it's not the most easiest ingredient to get last minute but if you can then great. If you can't then use 2 tbsp vegetable oil instead.

Let's get on it! Recipe below will make 8 chapatis, perfect for 4 diners or 2 super hungry ones! For the water, you can get the right temperature and quantity by mixing together 75ml boiling water and 75ml cold water.

Chapati

125g Plain Wheat Flour

125g Plain White Flour

1/2 Tsp Salt

2 Tbsp Melted Ghee

150ml Warm Water

1. Mix together the two flours and the salt in a large bowl before adding in the ghee and half of the water and mix everything together whilst slowly adding the second half of water until a soft (but not sticky) dough ball has formed. You may not need all the water for this so don't lob it all in at once. If your dough is too sticky, add in a smidge more flour.
2. Knead the dough ball inside the bowl or a few minutes until smooth and then cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave to rest for 15-30 minutes.
3. Once rested, tip the dough out onto a floured surface and cut into 8 equal sized pieces. Roll each piece out until roughly 25cm in diameter and so that they are very thin all over. Cover the rolled out dough in a tea towel again and leave to rest whilst you heat up your pan. 
4. Lightly grease a griddle pan and place on the job at a medium to high heat until the pan begins to smoke slightly. Pop in each  piece of the rolled out dough one at a time, frying the first side for around 1 minute until you see large bubbles form on the surface of the dough. Flip the dough and fry for a further minute. Each side of the dough should have brown spots on them. If they are burning, reduce the heat slightly or increase to heat of the brown spots are not forming.

Pop a plate into a warm oven so that you can keep your chapatis on a warm plate and cover them with some foul until you are ready to serve them. They are delicious as they are but if you like you can brush them with a bit of herb butter or rub some peeled garlic cloves on the surface of each just to add a bit of extra flavor. You can now tuck right in, ripping the chapatis apart and using them to scoop up every last bit of the delicious curry sauce you've been brewing in your slow cooker. Fancy making some chapatis for your dinner? When they are this simple to do so, you'd be a fool not too!