In case you haven’t noticed, I am brown. My specific color of brown can only be achieved through biracial parents, in my case, one Caucasian woman and one Indian (dot not feather) man. For the longest time, I ignored my brown side, especially the food, because it was stinky, full of spices and hot peppers. As a kid, Taco Bell was much more hip and exotic. Thankfully, I got over that stage. Recently, my father took me down to visit my Lila Khaki (Gujarati for aunt) and get a proper cooking lesson. My father’s side of the family happens to hail from the state of Gujarat in Western Indian, so all of food we eat tends to be inspired by the food of that region. My khaki works quickly, so quickly, she had already started cooking by the time I had arrived. “You are late! All cooking is done!” she said with a stern face after opening the door. I guess my bumper falling off the back of my car in the middle of the highway wasn’t a good enough of an excuse for my tardiness. Everyone has a khaki, or at least their version of my khaki. She’s ethnic, she loves to cook and everything she says is right. Be she Indian, Italian, or Mexican, EVERYONE has a khaki. I love my Lila Khaki. She’s a tough critic, sometimes too honest, but overall a strong woman. Of course all of the cooking wasn’t done already, but she did start making the poori dough without me. Poori is one of a about a million flat breads that Indians use to scoop up and eat their food. My family loves using poori for chole (a chickpea curry) and for dipping in sweetened mango pulp as a sweet side dish for dinner. Khaki started with 2 cups of chapati flour (buy at your local Indian grocery store), a little water and a little oil. She mixes it around for a minute or so until she has a slightly moist, easily rollable dough.
In fact, a lot of Indian breads, including bhakri, paratha and roti, can be made in much the same way, with a slightly different ratio of flour to oil and water. Once the dough was mixed, Khaki portioned the dough out into perfect little balls that I think roughly weighed an ounce, maybe an ounce and a half.
She set up a classic bread rolling board and a thin rolling pin, the same kind I had watched my grandma Motiben use every morning to roll the family’s bread. She dipped a round of dough in more flour, then set to work on rolling the dough into a perfect circle. She would roll up and down, then use the pin to gently and quickly rotate the dough around 45 degrees, then repeat. Roll, rotate, roll, rotate.
It was almost hypnotic how perfectly she completed this task, like she had been doing it every day for the past 30 years (she had). I attempted to roll some poori. Guess which ones were mine and which were hers?
Khaki heated a few tablespoons of oil in a pan over medium heat, then plopped in her first poori. Her trick to a perfectly puffed poori? Press down on it with a spatula as soon as it hits the oil, and it will puff up on it’s own. Flip and repeat.
I took a big bite of a poori still warm and puffy from the oil, and felt a whoosh of air escape. It was just like I had remembered eating as a kid. ~LTG! *********************************** Lila Khaki’s Poori Bread 2 cups of chapati (wheat) flour (do not use regular or all purpose!) 3 Tablespoons of Vegetable or Canola Oil Water, just enough to bind Mix together the flour and oil, then add just enough water to hold the dough together. Knead the dough well for one minute, ensuring the dough is smooth and slightly moist. Portion dough into balls based on poori size you would like, then roll out each piece of dough thinly and evenly, to your desired width. Lightly fry in hot oil and drain on a paper towel. Eat asap!
