Prologue:
Empirical Evidences. I like those. One can state anything with unabashed confidence and it must be accepted, for it's based on Empirical Evidence!
The Act:
"Making Rotis is helluva junk job", that was my pet statement. Post enlightenment, when I had started cooking on my own, I had attempted a demeanour to make Rotis. I confess, candidly, that whatever I had made, it was everything, but a Roti. While putting the thing in the casserole, I bent it along its (assumed) diameter. To my horror, the thing made a 'takk' noise and broke off into two distinct things. I looked around my empty 2BHK just to check if anyone has heard that disastrous creak. Only the Feng-Shui had observed it, silently. I was relieved.
The incident was so demoralising, that I ate rice-dal-sabji combo for couple of days at a stretch. Takk! That was the sound that hounded me whenever I used to spot the Wheat flour can in the kitchen. The reminiscences of the sound were so dispiriting that had almost made my mind to convert the flour can in to the garbage can with the flour as it's first occupant. But then, fighting spirit is an in-thing still. So, I thought of giving the rotis another try.
This time, I exhibited the intelligence of consulting my mumma prior to staining my limbs in the dough. Mumma snapped, "Oh! Rubbish. Making rotis is no art. It's an act of worship. If you have faith, it will be round." I started with faith in my gut feeling. While I added the water more generously while kneading, but took care that the flour does not get wiped out in the flood. This time, surprisingly, the rotis were softer. Plus, the thing swelled from few spots. As far as shape is concerned, it was still towards the squarer side vis-a-vis the old-fashioned round. This continued for a few days.
Then one day, it struck me that mumma used to touch the dough with a spoonful of oil while kneading it! Next moment, I put a call. Mumma quipped, "My love, I thought you had that much of common sense to knead it with oil. It makes it more fluffy and soft! Oh Gosh! How could you pass all those glorified Engineering exams when you can't even learn such a trivial thing ?!!" Being a (forced) optimist, I took it as a patting rather than bashing. Apropos, I put oil. And as if a miracle, the dough was blended way softer than I have ever had done till that date. I tried the rotis. It was easier to roll them. I ate. It was softer. I could break off a piece using only three fingers of one hand! But the darned thing was still out of shape.
While I was happy with the taste and softness, the shape always make me feel low, incomplete, imperfect. That evening, I was doing it in a routine manner; rolling the rotis. By chance, rather than turning the dough lump for the roti by full 90°, I happened to turn it by a lesser degree. I rolled. I found the lump getting a rather circular shape over the squarer one I have always been getting. Then I realised the secret that the circular form is achieved by rotating the dough lump by subtle angles and then rolling it. I frowned; it was such a simple thing, the circular shape, can be achieved by putting equal pressure on the dough orienting outwards in all directions! That day, for record December 5, 2006, was the day on which my rotis were not only soft and tasty but also circular. Mumma was right. I must have faith in my brain.
Now, after one month or so, I find that the time required to knead the dough and then to make five rotis has been drastically cut down to around 20 minutes which was as high as 45 minutes 3 months ago. Experience does make a man perfect. Granted.
Epilogue:
I stand by every word written, the Prologue standing or notwithstanding.
________________________
Comments-
Arianbyheart said...
Yet another milestone achieved by a bachelor who professes cooking when he is not saving the world from hands of evil. It is a happy feeling when an individual finally eventually achieves the golden combination of roti, kapda and Makan. Good going Sir. Am waiting to listen about your yet to be unvieled "Soup tragedy". So, what if starters come after lunch.
Unmana said...
LOL
I dread making rotis too. Thanks for the tips.?
___________________________
* Migrated from the erstwhile My Experiments as a Cook.
Empirical Evidences. I like those. One can state anything with unabashed confidence and it must be accepted, for it's based on Empirical Evidence!
The Act:
"Making Rotis is helluva junk job", that was my pet statement. Post enlightenment, when I had started cooking on my own, I had attempted a demeanour to make Rotis. I confess, candidly, that whatever I had made, it was everything, but a Roti. While putting the thing in the casserole, I bent it along its (assumed) diameter. To my horror, the thing made a 'takk' noise and broke off into two distinct things. I looked around my empty 2BHK just to check if anyone has heard that disastrous creak. Only the Feng-Shui had observed it, silently. I was relieved.
The incident was so demoralising, that I ate rice-dal-sabji combo for couple of days at a stretch. Takk! That was the sound that hounded me whenever I used to spot the Wheat flour can in the kitchen. The reminiscences of the sound were so dispiriting that had almost made my mind to convert the flour can in to the garbage can with the flour as it's first occupant. But then, fighting spirit is an in-thing still. So, I thought of giving the rotis another try.
This time, I exhibited the intelligence of consulting my mumma prior to staining my limbs in the dough. Mumma snapped, "Oh! Rubbish. Making rotis is no art. It's an act of worship. If you have faith, it will be round." I started with faith in my gut feeling. While I added the water more generously while kneading, but took care that the flour does not get wiped out in the flood. This time, surprisingly, the rotis were softer. Plus, the thing swelled from few spots. As far as shape is concerned, it was still towards the squarer side vis-a-vis the old-fashioned round. This continued for a few days.
Then one day, it struck me that mumma used to touch the dough with a spoonful of oil while kneading it! Next moment, I put a call. Mumma quipped, "My love, I thought you had that much of common sense to knead it with oil. It makes it more fluffy and soft! Oh Gosh! How could you pass all those glorified Engineering exams when you can't even learn such a trivial thing ?!!" Being a (forced) optimist, I took it as a patting rather than bashing. Apropos, I put oil. And as if a miracle, the dough was blended way softer than I have ever had done till that date. I tried the rotis. It was easier to roll them. I ate. It was softer. I could break off a piece using only three fingers of one hand! But the darned thing was still out of shape.
While I was happy with the taste and softness, the shape always make me feel low, incomplete, imperfect. That evening, I was doing it in a routine manner; rolling the rotis. By chance, rather than turning the dough lump for the roti by full 90°, I happened to turn it by a lesser degree. I rolled. I found the lump getting a rather circular shape over the squarer one I have always been getting. Then I realised the secret that the circular form is achieved by rotating the dough lump by subtle angles and then rolling it. I frowned; it was such a simple thing, the circular shape, can be achieved by putting equal pressure on the dough orienting outwards in all directions! That day, for record December 5, 2006, was the day on which my rotis were not only soft and tasty but also circular. Mumma was right. I must have faith in my brain.
Now, after one month or so, I find that the time required to knead the dough and then to make five rotis has been drastically cut down to around 20 minutes which was as high as 45 minutes 3 months ago. Experience does make a man perfect. Granted.
Epilogue:
I stand by every word written, the Prologue standing or notwithstanding.
________________________
Comments-
Arianbyheart said...
Yet another milestone achieved by a bachelor who professes cooking when he is not saving the world from hands of evil. It is a happy feeling when an individual finally eventually achieves the golden combination of roti, kapda and Makan. Good going Sir. Am waiting to listen about your yet to be unvieled "Soup tragedy". So, what if starters come after lunch.
Unmana said...
LOL
I dread making rotis too. Thanks for the tips.?
___________________________
* Migrated from the erstwhile My Experiments as a Cook.
1 comment:
As a practice, try making pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal and so on, chiliagonal, myriagonal, megagonal until you achieve the perfect circular one.
*Consult wikipedia for unexplained terms
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