Making home-made chapatis

My niece invited me to an intercultural community day with the promise that if I attended, I could learn how to make authentic chapatis and chick pea curry. I would have been happy to attend just to have a taste of either but the chance to make Indian food from scratch was too good to turn down.

When we arrived at the event, we were slightly perturbed to walk straight into a Rwandan dance workshop which seemed to consist of a serious amount of twerking. Having skilfully bypassed the dancing, we found ourselves the only two waiting to learn about Indian cooking. We were delighted as this meant we would practically have a private lesson.
The lovely ladies that we met took us through how to make both dishes. They explained to us how to make a paste from scratch that forms the gravy used in lots of dishes. They had brought the gravy ready made for the purpose of the demo and simply added some spices and the chick peas to make a delicious curry.

If I am honest, when we tried to recreate the paste/gravy, it simply didn’t work. I have no idea what we did wrong but it needed some of my trusty Pataks paste and some cream to make it edible. I was gutted as the curry served to us was simply delicious. I had had the foresight to make a chicken curry as a back- up in case it all went wrong so I was able to offer people a choice.

However, what did go well, was our attempt to recreate the home-made chapatis or flat bead. Even just making them from scratch with four ingredients made them seem healthier and they tasted really good with the curry. We followed our instructions to the letter and they worked a treat!

If you want to try them, here’s what you will need:
Ingredients
• 250g plain flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp. olive oil
• 100ml warm water
Instructions:
• Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre
• Add the olive oil and the water
• Using a fork work the ingredients together adding a little more water if needed
• Once it all starts to come together, use hands to form a soft ball of dough
• Dust your hands and the work surface with flour and knead the dough for 5 minutes until it is smooth and elastic
• Place the dough back in the bowl, cover and set aside for 15 minutes
• Divide the dough into 6- 7 equal balls
• Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll the pieces into rounds, aiming to have them about the thickness of a £2 coin

• Heat a non-stick pan and cook the breads for 1 minute on each side
• Serve immediately