Homemade Chapati - $0

My kitchen.

OK so it isn’t absolutely free but I don’t know the cost of 3 cups of flour, a few good throws of salt, water, a few teaspoons of yoghurt and about half a shot of oil. A shot as in alcoholic shots. That’s all the ingredients I used.

I decided to make chapati after reading the recipe and finding out that it is incredibly easy to do. It didn’t turn out so good, but was fun and easy and at least now I think I know where I screwed up and can make a better batch next time.

  So 1 cup of flour is all the measurements I was given. The salt you add to taste and the water, well, however much is needed to get the flour into manageable dough consistency. Oil is optional but I think you should add it in. This gives you 5 chapatis.

I made 2 batches, one with water and another with yoghurt. Mixing flour with cold yoghurt is TOUGH.. that shit is slippery and doesn’t mix well, and getting the right mix is hard. I ended up adding another cup of flour into it, in an attempt to find the right flour-yoghurt ratio balance. When rolling you apply a lotta flour so it doesn’t stick.

The pic on the right is how it should look like after the first flip, and when the other side looks like this also, you flip it again. It will start puffing up if you don’t control the heat on the pan, which I guess makes for an interesting visual treat but that’s not how real chapati should be like. Oh I should mention this is not bad for your health at all based on the ingredients, and the fact that you don’t cook with oil. Notice I said this “isn’t bad for your health”… I didn’t say “this is really healthy”. Cos I dunno how beneficial it is for your health. The oil you add into the premix doesn’t make it oily (to the touch). And because you don’t cook with oil, the flour  that you used to smoothen the dough will also transfer to the pan and eventually onto the finished product. Yeah, you eat raw flour. Unsure of the health benefits there but let’s just say it is for the sake of ending this post.

So where did I screw up? I made it too thin, and cranked up the heat on the pan. That resulted in very crispy chapati, like biscuits. Chapati should be like tortilla wrap, it should be soft and bread-like, as in non-yeast bread.

Also, I forgot salt with the yoghurt mix. So while it was slightly smoother, it was completely tasteless. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I had curry to go with it, but that’s my last mistake – I made chapati without any curry.. or ANYTHING… to go with it. That’s like making rice but forgetting about all the other stuff. Real smart.