This gently oil poached bread ( fried) is perfect for clogging up those arteries which aren’t already buggered . Best served with a chick peas curry which will mean another blog post.
These are very similar to the west Indian doubles but eaten fresh and hot and not wrapped to be like a sandwich.
We can make these with multiple kind of flour mixes, but for today’s one I used wholemeal spelt, plain flour and whole wheat flour .
Flour- 250g
Spelt flour- 100 g
Whole meal flour- 100 g
Baking powder- 5 g /1 tsp
Warm water- 240-260 g depends– we want a semi soft dough
Yeast-4 g
Salt- 8 g
Sugar- 8 g
Oil-15 g
Mix flours yeast baking powder sugar and add in the water to make the dough. Add in salt/oil and leave to rest.
When resting keep dough covered to prevent it from skinning
After 15-20 mins you will see the dough start to rise .
Scale into about 50 g balls and rest for -5-10 mins again.
roll out about 1/2 cm thick .Leave for 2-3 mins
Gently poach(not really)/fry in hot oil. These should be puffed up and browned after frying.
Eat one or many depending on how badly you want to clog up those arteries.
Typically served with a chickpeas curry,but you could do other stuff with it..
In commercial baking they talk about bakers formula and that makes life so much easier rather than trying to remember a recipe with exact details.
I will give you an example of a simple bread formula using bakers percentage. In this the flour is Always taken as a100%.and everything else is taken in proportion to the flour .
Flour 100%
Water or liquid -65%
Active dry yeast -2%
Sugar 2%
Salt2%
Oil/fat-5%
So I were to put a weight on this I could say
Flour 1000g
Water 650g
Yeast 20g
Salt 20g
Oil/butter -50g
The method stays the same . Mix flour with water sugar and yeast then add in the water .add salt and oil in the end .
Heat oil, add butter and whole spices
then add 500 gms chopped onions and saute on low heat till light brown.
Add ¼ tsp coriander pdr, 1/8tsp cumin powder, pinch turmeric powder.
Add in about 20 gms of ginger and garlic paste. continue to saute.
Add in 400 gm tin of chopped tomatoes , and slow cook till the oil starts to separate out.
Then can add about 1 kg of chicken on the bone which should ideally be marinated with ginger and garlic paste about 20 gms and about 100 gms of plain / greek yoghurt.
at this stage you can also add in chilli powder to your taste or 2-3 green chillies.
let is simmer on low heat with a lid for about 30 minutes.
Season with salt and some garam masala powder. Also a small pinch of nutmeg. Add some fresh coriander and mint for the oomph factor.
We would get a chicken curry or masala like this maybe once every few months when we were growing up. Even chicken was a treat not for daily eating. Aai would take us to the butcher I still remember the name Prakash where they would take a fresh chicken and cut it up and wrap in newspaper to take home .
stories of foods from the world over, laced with a hint of sarcasm and some black humour, its not for everyone, but then never was meant to be..