Bati

The bread that uses the least water, which is why it keeps in a desert.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (ghee).

Ingredients

• 500 g coarse wheat flour
• 60 g fine semolina
• 100 g ghee, for the dough
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• about 170 ml water
• 120 g ghee, melted, to dip

Method

1. THE BREAD THAT USES THE LEAST WATER, WHICH IS WHY IT KEEPS IN A DESERT. Its article does not give that as a technique but as the reason the bread exists: baati IS PRIZED FOR ITS LONG SHELF LIFE AND HIGH NUTRITIONAL CONTENT, AND, IN DESERT AREAS, FOR THE MINIMAL QUANTITY OF WATER REQUIRED FOR ITS PREPARATION. A hundred and seventy millilitres to half a kilo of flour is about half what a chapati takes, and the dough will feel wrong -- crumbly, barely holding. That is correct.
2. THE GHEE DOES THE WORK THE WATER WOULD HAVE DONE. A hundred grams rubbed through the flour until it holds a shape when squeezed. Without it, that little water gives you gravel.
3. SEMOLINA WITH THE FLOUR, FOR THE CRUMB. Sixty grams. It is what makes the inside sandy rather than dense, and it is what the ghee is poured over at the end.
4. KNEAD IT AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. Press it together and stop. Kneading builds gluten and a bati is meant to crumble, not to tear.
5. ROLL TEN BALLS AND PRESS A DEEP DIMPLE IN EACH. The dimple is not decoration: it lets the middle cook before the outside is hard, and it holds ghee at the table.
6. BAKE THEM HOT AND LONG, AND TURN THEM ONCE. 200C for forty minutes, turned at twenty, until they are deep brown and cracked and sound hollow. A pale bati is raw in the middle and will not keep.
7. ITS ARTICLE GIVES FILLINGS AND A SOFTER RELATIVE. Baati CAN EITHER BE PLAIN OR HAVE VARIOUS KINDS OF FILLINGS, INCLUDING ONIONS, PEAS, AND SATTU, and BAPHLA IS A KIND OF BAATI, WHICH IS SOFTER -- boiled before it is baked, which is how it gets that way.
8. CRUSH THEM IN YOUR HAND, DRENCH THEM IN MELTED GHEE, AND EAT THEM WITH DAL. Its article says baati IS COMMONLY EATEN WITH DAL, HENCE ALSO REFERRED TO AS DAL BAATI, and that in Madhya Pradesh it is paired with a roasted aubergine mash. Dal bati is on its own page.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes