Bhakhri
Gujarati home staple, homemade flatbread/bhakhri using whole wheat flour (coarse or fine) along with oil, salt and water!
Bhakhri is a round bread often used in the cuisine of the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa in India, along with several regions of western and central India, including areas of Rajasthan, Malwa, and Karnataka. It contains coarser wheat flour than a regular wheat chapati. It can be either soft or hard in texture, similar to khakhra in respect to hardness.
This version of the bhakhri is soft and uses fine whole wheat flour with option to add semolina if the preference is on crispy side! Moreover You can also use special bhakhri flour or mix of fine wheat flour and bhakhri flour for different texture depending on your preferences. According to me it is one of the simplest bread to make. I learned making this first and then other different kind of flat breads/rotis!
It is a staple in my household. I grew up eating phulka roti for lunch along with shak made out of some sort of fresh vegetable. For dinner I would have beans curry along with bhakhri or gluten free rotla. It is not only served for lunch and dinner, it can also be served as breakfast or snack along with some masala chai and spicy mango pickle (achar)!
You can add cumin powder/seeds, ajwain (carom seeds) or jaggery to add different flavors. My kids absolutly love them! They are so easy to eat on the go and keeps you full for long time! You can use regular milk or soy milk to form the dough instead of just water. You can freeze them for up to 3 months and it stays good at room temperature for up to 3-5 days! This is honestly one of the basic food in my house hold, how about you?! Check out my Amazon storefront to see what I use to make rotli/bhakhri!
Happy and Healthy Eating!
Bhakhri
Ingredients
- 2 cup Wheat Flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- ¼ cup Oil
- ¾ cup Warm Water less or more depending on type of flour
- 1 tbsp Semolina optional
Instructions
- Mix 2 cups of whole, 1 tsp of salt and ¼ cup of oil in a big bowl. Mix it well with your hands.
- If you want to make your bhakhri crispy for snack, add 1 tbsp of semolina to the flour mix and mix it well. If you want to make soft bhakhri that is easy to scoop the curry with, then please skip this step.
- Start adding little warm water at a time and start needing the dough. The dough should be firm like kids playdoh. Do not make the dough soft. You should NOT need extra dry flour to roll the bhakhri.
- Once dough is ready, cover it and keep it aside for 5-10 minutes.
- Once ready to make the bhakhri, grease a tawa (flat pan) with tiny amount of oil and start warming it up.
- Uncover the dough and need it again to smooth it out. Divide the dough in 12-13 even sized balls.
- Massage each dough ball between your palms and flatten it.
- Start rolling it as thin or thick as you like. You should not need extra flour to roll it as the oil in the dough and the firmness of the dough should be good enough for you to roll it without extra flour.
- Once the tawa is almost hot, place rolled bhakhri on the tawa and cook on low/medium heat for 15-20 seconds.
- Once you start seeing the side facing down turning whitish with light brown dots, flip it.
- Flip the bhakhri and cook the other side on low/medium for 10 seconds and then medium/high for 20 ish seconds or until the side facing down has good amount of brown spots on it.
- Add ½ tsp on oil on the side facing up, flip it and cook the bhakhri with some pressure on it using wooden roti presser, spatula or clean cloth until the side facing down is good golden brown.
- Flip it and cook the other side same way until the side facing down is good golden brown. Take it off the tawa and place it flat on cloth or pepper towel so the steam does not make the bhakhri soggy.
- Repeat rolling/cooking process for each dough ball.
- Serve them hot/warm or room temperature with any curry if serving it for meals or with cup of hot chai and achar for snack!
