Tandoori Roti

What to cook on a weeknight is usually a big dilemma for me.. I would normally consider cooking 10 different things and waste over an hour wondering which one to cook. Then usually end up asking hubby dear to make that decision(Wish i would just do that in the first place !!)..One such night was last night.. He took out one of my many cook books and flipped through them, found something he liked and insisted that i cook it. Now that i had asked him to do so, i had to cook whatever he asked for . "Vadi koduthu adi vangikya..." (loosely translates to - Give the stick and get the beatings) . Anyways he had chosen "Tandoori Roti" for dinner. Now i cannot for the life of me, cook decent chappati's so Tandoori Roti was an even scary option. But i had some leftover rice in the fridge as a fall back plan if everything else failed...so thought of giving it a try. But they turned out really good...and it was so easy to make, infact i prefer making them to chappati's... I made a spicy chicken curry to go with it and the combination was real good...

The recipe for Tandoori Roti was taken from "Mridula Baljekar's book - Great Indian Feasts". Here's my version of the original recipe.

Ingredients :
2 cups self-raising flour(Maida) plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsps plain yoghurt
1 tbsp baking soda mixed with water.

Method:
Put the flour, sugar, salt and yeast into a large mixing bowl and mix well. Beat the oil & yoghurt together and add it to the flour. Gradually add the soda water and mix until a sticky dough is formed. .Transfer the dough to your work surface and knead it till its soft and springy and does not stick to the worksurface  any more. Place the dough in a bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Leave the dough to rise for 1 - 1/2 hrs.

Preheat the oven to 220 C. Line a baking sheet with greased baking paper.

Divide the dough into 8 equal sized portions. Make small balls from each of them then flatten it to form a round cake. Dust each cake in a little flour and then roll it out to a 10cm/4 in circle. Place on the prepared baking sheet and bake on the top shelf of the oven for 5-17 minutes or until puffed and browned in patches.

Serve with some fried chicken or spicy chicken curry