ICC World Cup 2011 Game Day Menu : Bhaturas & a Cake to Share

Apr-02-2011.......A date marked in Indian History, India won Cricket World Cup 2011 after 28 long years, there's nothing one can compare with the festivities which took place after Dhoni(Indian team captain) hit the ball for the winner sixer. India became the first nation to win a ICC World Cup on home soil. I really missed being in India at that time. Congrats to all the Indians all over the world.

The date 2nd April was marked in our calender long time back, not that we had any kind of future forecasting for India winning World Cup but it was on this date 9 yrs. back I got to hold my little precious daughter in my hand for the first time, Yes! I became MOM. So it's being her birthday she got to choose the game day menu and she made the perfect choice of classic Punjabi dish Chole Bhature, not only my or my family's favourite but I believe it's on every Indians list of fav. food.

Unlike it's cousin Poori(another famous deep fried bread from India) which is made with whole wheat flour, Bhatura is made using White flour/Maida/All purpose flour. It is little crispy on the outside soft,fluffy & spongy on the inside and have a little chewy texture(as it gets colder) because of Maida. It's a very easy recipe only thing is you need to plan ahead of time as the dough needs to ferment. There are quick versions too....one of my husband's colleague shared their quick fix for bhaturas is regular Tacos, fry them & they are ready. Another friend of mine uses yeast that brings down the ferment time from 8 hrs. to 2 hrs. of rising time only. I have also heard of using ready made pizza dough for it. But as a Delhite who has eaten tastiest bhaturas in the town for most of her life I prefer to either plan it or instead make poori alloo and leave Chole Bhature for some other day. If U are wondering why I said poori alloo(potatoes) & not poori chole because that too need planning ahead of time because I use dry chickpeas & not canned version. So for me planning ahead is not a problem because when I'm going to soak dry chickpeas for Chole part at that time only I can make dough for Bhaturas.

For Chole's(chana masala) recipe U can click here I posted last year, for new readers just to let U know that you really don't need any store bought chana masala just few regular masalas from your spice box & you can whip this delicious Chana Masala . Now for Bhaturas...................

UPDATE on July/14/2015 : On my quest to add more multigrains & millet flours to our everyday meals, without compromising on the taste, today I tried a different version of these Bhaturas.  I used equal part Unbleached all Purpose Flour + Whole Wheat Flour + Millet Flour(I used Bob's RedMill Brand). Rest of the recipe is pretty much same except that I didn't measured the water as U might need more or less as we have changed the flours. Taste & Look wise no body noticed any difference, everyone enjoyed it as ususal but with less guilty. So these Multigrain Bhaturas are family approved(kids + adults) :). 

What I used : (this recipe yielded me 14 med. size(around 4"x6") bhaturas.

• 3 cup Maida/All purpose flour ( I use unbleached variety)
• 1/4 of tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup yogurt/dahi (preferably sour dahi/curd)
• 3 tablespoon oil
• salt (i used 1 & 1/2 tsp.)
• water as needed(roughly 1 cup)
• oil for deep frying the bhaturas

What I did :

1. Mix salt & baking soda in the flour. Add oil & yogurt and rub it into the flour.
2. Adding only little water at a time knead it into a soft dough.
3. Once it's not sticky any more, rub oil on your palms & roll the dough ball in it & place it in a greased bowl. Cover with wet kitchen towel & let it sit at some warm place for 8-10 hours for ferment(* see notes below). I usually do it overnight as I always make it for breakfast/brunch.
4. When the dough is ready(after ferment), rub little oil on your hands and divide the dough into 12 or 14 equal size balls(little bigger than ping pong ball), keep them covered with a wet kitchen towel. Using rolling pin roll them into flat oval disc(* see notes) and deep fry it on med. heat till you get little brown spots on both the sides(make sure rest of the stuff like chole & salad etc. is ready to go before you start frying ).

Serve it hot with Chole/Chana Masala and some red onions sprinkled with salt & lemon juice and last but not the least Punjabi Mango pickle.

Notes :

In cold weather some time it's difficult to get the dough fermented so I usually make it not only night before but almost 24. hrs. before I'm gonna use it. As heat from the cooking keeps my kitchen warm during the day & it helps the dough also and in the night I keep it in the oven. However this time I only left it overnight(around 11-12 hrs.), it was soft to touch but in volume it didn't rise a lot but still bhaturas came out really good.

You can shape them round but because of the elasticity in the dough it's somehow more easy if U make them in Oval shape. Even back in Delhi also I remember the best bhaturas were almost always Oval shaped as Halwais(professional who makes Indian sweets & also savoury snack/munchies & breakfast kind of stuff) don't roll them using rolling pin instead they smack the dough ball between their hands & that motion of smacking against the hand & slightly pulling them gives them kind of oval shape. So as far I'm concerned in my 11 years of cooking, for this reason I guess I never even thought of making round bhatura, though I roll it.

Now for those who have never eaten bhatura here's another look but from inside, can U see the slightly crispy top outside layer, the thin little brown kind of :

and another one to show U how spongy it is from inside, see the holes, the kind U get when U pull any soft white bread:

and if you are familiar to these yummy breads then I'm sure these photos can assure you that you gonna get the best bhaturas right in your kitchen.

We finished our meal with big glass of Lassi (Punjabi yogurt drink) & I was screaming and jumping at that time because that was the time to celebrate India's victory. And here's the picture of B'day cake we had on that day, DD had given me a full drawing of what kind of a cake she wanted but I believe I need lot of practice before I can do that but she was happy with what I made.

I tried my hand for the first time on candy clay. I started working on it only the night before, should have tried that atleast a week before as the figure she wanted on her cake couldn't be done because the clay was getting too soft too quickly but it was fun to work with it so changed the plan & made the roses instead. I guess somehwere in my heart I knew India gonna win or I should say like any other Indian I also wanted Indian team to win so I decided to go with pink for my daughter & blue for our team & B'day girl was happy.