i submitted an article for WE today and I'm submitting it in my blog here.....
Wintry afternoons ---with bajra
roti
I love winter afternoons-in Emily Dickinson's
words 'there's a certain slant of light' which teases you and invites you.
On just such a seductive December afternoon I step into my island kitchen with
my daughter and made her complete Haryanvi lunch, the lunch was amazing. On
that day itself I wrote this write up so that the readers can also be
acquainted and turn to basics of life.
I love this
type of childhood memory food. Honestly it's important for me when I cook for
or with the kids that I make what my grandma or mom made when I was growing up.
That's right! I'm not a traditional person in any way, but when it comes to food,
I can be.
Memories of
childhood with bajra still alive. The winter morning
shivers and in need of some warmth called
niwaach in our colloquial Haryanvi, while wrapped with sopaly’s (haryanvi khadi shawl)
bukal, (To wrap around to get
cozy)
during the childhood spent in the village, had nothing to do with severity of
the winters. But rather bajra-millet, if you so like it in English.
Yes, this delicacy was always the culprit,
particularly in its typical characteristic of being the staple of the plate of
most of us the village dwellers. Village people, particularly in the arid area
of Bhiwani district of mine and semi-arid zones in North India bordering
Rajasthan eat millet or bajra very
fondly.
bajra roti with red chutney, a-luni,and lassi
In
winters, we ate bajra roti in the
morning with dahi, and a-luni, which
had a distinct salty taste and it was called a-luni for this reason. The saltiness in a-luni’s taste developed due to the daylong heating up milk in a kadhoni ( an earthen cauldron) and its
later overnight fermenting into curd witch was churned to take a-luni out of it, the following day.
In
the evening, we invariably ate bajra-
khichri with ghee or butter and another course with kachchaa dudh aur goji. The evening helpings of bajra-khichri kept the body cozy and warm
enough from ‘inside’ but the scene would definitely change at dawn when we
would actually feel a near- freezing sensation.
The
Sundays were for loots in early mornings saw everyone of us making a dash to
the kitchen which had soot deposits on its walls and there was no chimney. The bajra-khichri container was under attack
from all sides. Everyone had his or her preferred texture of the stuff whether
it was paste-lump or the upper crust or the inside wall burnt crisp called khurachan in colloquial desi. We would then wait for milk so
arrive from the nohara-the cattle
yard.
With
added- half churned curd the adh-biloi
dahi in our colloquial Haryanvi,, bajra-khichri
tasted heavenly. We did not use spoons to eat our stuff: nor perhaps would we
have preferred to use any cutlery for a culinary item: like bajra-khichri which is best partaken of
with hands. The nimble fingers did a wonderful job in “keep mixing it go down
the throat”. And down and down. Making even the intestines colder and colder
with each such slippage. Thus cold bajra-
khichri, cold churned curd the adh-biloi
dahi, cold fingers, cold throat, cold guts, cold abdomen and above all cold
weather made us shiver once again and run for our quilts. The return journey
from the soot-filled kitchen to the quilts had always had us sipping our bajra khichri- curd soaked fingers,
making slurps sound louder and louder.
Much to the annoyance of grandmaa.
Next
thing to do in those winter vacations. Well, we would either sit in the sun on
the chabutara outside our mansion’s
main gate for long, or if it was a cloudy morning, then make some bonfire in
our nohara and laze a little more.
For a change, try using bajra
instead of wheat
as your roti’s, or add it to your favorite boiled
porridge.
Bajra is
also great in winter it protects us from cold weather- combine cooked chilled bajra- roti pieces with
potato chips, chopped onion, basil
and coriander. Season to taste and enjoy this rural Haryanvi snack.
So if you’re not convinced after my very long testimonial, just go out and get
some. Bajra is so delicious, easy to make, versatile and of
course, a totally healthy super-food! And you shouldn’t accept anything else
from the food you put in that beautiful body of yours…here’s to bajra,
your new best friend.
I am sure many of us do not know
it though they love to eat. Till last I really didn’t know how to make this “Bajra roti”. So, I usually used to wait
for my mom to make them. I remember a funny incidence about Bajra roti. Generally Bajra roti is staple food of rural
farmers. So, my friend (from our nearby village) always used to nag “Mom, why
are you making this Bajra rotis??
Only poor people eat this.” Somehow she had the feeling that farmers are poor
and only they eat this. But now she herself advocates for bajra roti to
everyone she met.
For me making Bajra roti is a bit time consuming as
compared to making a chapati or fulka. But it has got its own taste. I must say
unique taste.
Bajra roti makes a healthy diet since it is gluten-free diet. It is
good in treatment of celiac disease and wheat allergies. It keeps bones and
teeth healthy giving energy to the body. It also maintains the health of heart,
controls diabetes, arthritis and weight of the body. It’s also good source of
calcium, potassium and few vitamin B complex.
Believe me, a bit difficult to
make Bajra roti is worth your
efforts. Don’t get disheartened if you don’t get it right for the first time.
Even I screwed it up horribly first time. Lack of gluten makes it
difficult to roll it. It often breaks into pieces. 1st time when I made Bajra roti I roasted at least 5 pieces
for each Bajra roti. By the time I
put it on the hot pan they were into pieces. Poor hubby dear, had those bite
sized shapeless roties without
complain. So here it goes....
The
chapattis should be rolled out quite thin, with the centre staying a bit
thicker. I didn't quite manage to master this technique. Next, the roties go in a dry frying pan on a high heat.
When cooked, you
hold the roties over a
naked flame, so that it puffs up with steam and blisters.
For the novice
cook, bajra roti would be masterful thing to make.
But for a novice cook, kneading the dough just right is a new frontier to
cross. So let us look at some other recipes that come together in the pot with moong dal and salt to taste to make soft
khichdis. It’s just a gruel of bajra (grounded coarsely) with moong
dal, cook in pressure cooker for 10 minutes and serve hot with a dollop of ghee
in the centre.
Some points
to consider for bajra roti....
Fresh milled grains
must be prepared immediately because the milled grain starts to go bad as soon
as it encounters oxygen. So the idea is to mill it, and use it immediately.
mill/grind
your bajra at home.
First,
it is important to rinse the grain; skipping this step will make the bajra
taste bitter (the husk attached to its end is bitter in taste). I like to
measure the desired amount in a large measuring cup, fill the rest with water
and swish it around, rubbing the seeds together. Then strain out the water and
repeat until the water runs clear, usually 2-3 times.
Most people don’t believe that they can grind flour in their home blender (isn’t
it only good for making milkshakes?), but it’s true – even a very cheap
one, like mine, can get the job done. All you have to do is add enough grain so
that it doesn’t just fly around inside the container. If you add at least 2
cups of grain, the weight of it will keep the kernels down around the blades.
1. Place at least 2 cups of the bajra,(you can grind any grain like this) grain (or legume) of your choice (wheat, jowar,
barley, rice, maize, black gram, soya bean) in a blender.
2. Turn the blender on high and watch the show. The grain will continue to
ground finer and finer, and it will rise up the sides of the blender. You will
know that is finished grinding when the flour stops falling into the center of
the centrifuge.
3. Remove flour from blender and sift according to your preferences. I used a
rather large-holed sieve because I like eating grainy roties i.e out of mota atta,
but I recognize not everyone shares my love of sand-textured roties. If you like lighter flour, use
a fine-mesh sieve.
That’s it. I wish it were more
complicated and impressive, but now you really have no excuses to keep buying
dead, nutritionally void store-bought flour. Enjoy your nutritious bajra roti.
xoxo
