Learning to Make the Perfect Bhakri
India has a rich tradition of non-wheat flatbreads made from a variety of flours. Jowar (sorgum), nachni (finger millet) and rice are all used to make delicious bhakris that are perfect with curries, pickles, and even just a spoon of jaggery.
Whenever my cousins and I visited our maternal grandparents over summer vacations, a 24-hour ride in a steamer took us from Mumbai (then Bombay) to Panaji. From Panaji we would take a ferry across the river Mandovi to Mapusa, where we’d spend a night or seven with an aunt. The next lap took us all the way south to Palolem, Goa. Our luggage included carefully parceled treats, preserved in dampened newspapers: cauliflowers, carrots, French-beans and peas-in-pods. There were other practical gifts, too, like spectacles and bedpans, but that is another story altogether.
Unlike what was done to the local vegetables — kidki (cluster beans), bhendi (okra), karate (spiny bitter little green fruit) and the leafy varieties — ‘imported’ vegetables were not eaten chopped, steamed and topped with freshly grated coconut. Instead they were seasoned with mustard seeds and curry-leaves, to which sautéed onions and ginger were added. After cooking the vegetables, coconut-scrapings, ground finely in their honour, were added in and lightly warmed a moment before serving.
On the journey back, we would carry novelties like jackfruit-papad and sun-dried, salted shark. We would also take with us coconut-frond brooms, small sacks of poha, chewy mango-saat sheets, packets of nachni (ragi, finger-millet) and jwari (sorghum) seeds, homemade snacks like neuryo (crisp half-circles stuffed with coconut-jaggery, to die for!), ladoos and chivdo, a cluster of raw bananas, dabbas of roasted cashews and bottles of pickles.
Almost all these items are now store bought.
I no longer store naachni and jwari grains. No checking for stones, no sifting, rinsing-sunning, or getting them ground at the neighbourhood mill. Nachni, jwari and rice flours are bought ready to use, convenient for making bhakris, the unleavened, griddle-roasted breads that we eat with any gravy, curry or chutney.
Unlike wheat-based phulkas, parathas and puris, the low to nil gluten-content makes these flours difficult to handle. The dough is brittle and has to be patted, not rolled, to give it shape. Ideally, the flour should be freshly-ground. The fresher the flour, the easier it is to make bhakri. If the flour is not as fresh as you’d like it to be, use very hot water (stirring with a spatula initially, not your hands) for kneading. The rolling-pin stays in the drawer when bhakris are made.
Rice flour is the easiest to handle and nachni the most troublesome. Jowar and bajra (pearl millet) are in-between. Makke-ki-rotis (made of coarse maize) are popular ‘bhakris’ of the north. True-blue bhakris are made with zero wheat flour content. And no oil, not even to grease the palm. Salt, too, is optional. Some eat it with jaggery, sesame seeds and ghee, others with mutton-curry. Vegetable preparations, dry or with gravy, often use a gram-flour base that the bhakri soaks up.
The skill takes practice. Knead it by pushing down with the base of your palm, folding and repeating, like one does with bread dough. But unlike breads, bhakri dough doesn’t need to rest.
In rural Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka, in Brahmin, Kshatriya, Dalit or Mahar homes, the first roti is offered to a bird or animal. Possibly, an act of piety, or more likely because in the early days, one couldn’t control the initial heat of the griddle, and the first bhakri was the one you warmed up with.
My neighbour from Bhuj, Gujarat, calls bhakris rotlas. She makes them in bulk, dries them on a tawa till they turn crisp, and then stores them in air-tight tins to be eaten later with tea, or with jaggery, or pickle-masala on the side.
Rice bhakris were the norm, alternating with jwari and naachni. Jwari was a summer food, and bajra a winter substitute. Makka-flour was unheard of. Times have changed; people eat porridges made of the above flours, make quinoa-based dosas, avoid meat- and milk-products. Yet, some things are the same; the smell and flavour of a freshly made bhakri, straight off the fire, with a spicy accompaniment, will remain a comfort food for the majority of India.
Recipe: Bhakri
Ingredients
½ cup finely-ground rice/jwar/nachni flour
Hot water, as needed
Method
Knead the flour with hot water, added a little at a time, to make a soft, smooth dough
Heat a griddle, nonstick or cast-iron
Shape the dough into a ball, roll it in a generous amount of flour and pat it into a thin disc,
turning it a little between each pat.
Transfer onto the tawa, and flip immediately.
Smear a little water on top of the bhakri, and cook on high heat.
As the water begins to evaporate, carefully flip it over. Reduce heat to medium at this point
When the bhakri shows signs of fluffing up, turn it over on the flame as you would a phulka. Watch it puff up.
Transfer to a plate, smother with ghee or butter and eat hot.
Banner image credit: Nanchi.blog
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