Flat bread is a staple food in many cultures. It is simple and quick to prepare. It is known under many names. Well known versions of flat bread are roti, chapati, tortilla and pita.

They are often used to wrap or scoop up other dishes.  Here are a few dishes that are eaten with flat bread: curry, roast beef (shawarma), mung dal, hummus, keema and baba ganoush (eggplant).

I learned how to make flat bread when I worked as an assistant cook on a ship. We had a Punjabi captain and he showed us how his family made them.

It's very important that the skillet or cooking surface is hot enough to puff up the bread quickly. It shouldn't take more than a minute or 2 to cook one piece bread. If your bread becomes brittle and crusty after it cools down then you didn't have enough heat to cook it properly. The key is to sear the bread and seal in the moisture of the dough while it cooks.

Ingredients : (good to make 4 pieces of 7 inch diameter flat bread)

- 1 cup whole wheat / all purpose flour (do not use cake flour)
- 3/4 cups warm water
- 1 tbsp oil - olive oil or ghee (clarified butter) is preferred but other types of oil can be used
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt

Procedure.

1. In a bowl, thoroughly mix all dry ingredients and oil together.

2. Add warm water slowly and stir mixture until all the water is absorbed.

3. Roll dough into a ball. Add flour if too wet, water if too dry. It is difficult to describe the correct consistency of the dough, but you will learn how to gauge it in a few tries.

4. Dust working surface with flour and  knead dough for a 3 minutes. Kneading is done by repeatedly flattening the dough and folding it. This ensures that all the ingredients are mixed well.

5. Form dough into a fat disk and cut into 4 equal parts.

6. Dust working surface and use a rolling pin or any cylindrical container to flatten out and stretch the piece of dough to about 7 inch diameter circle. You can cut it into a more rounder shape but I find this wasteful as it is hard to reuse the excess kneaded dough.

7. Heat skillet or large pan. A medium flame setting should be enough.

8. Get a clean piece of cloth, tie it  up and dip it in oil. One side of the cloth should be flat. This will be used to press the dough into the hot surface.

9. Place dough into the hot surface and press down with cloth until it puffs up. Be careful not to get burned. Once the bread puffs up turn it over and repeat process. This should not take more than 30 seconds for each side.At least 80-90% of the bread should puff up.

10. You may let it toast for few more seconds but do not let the bread stiffen up.

11. Get a large piece of cloth and put it over a plate. Place cooked bread there and cover with another piece of cloth.

12. Serve with your preferred dish.

 A well cooked flat bread will resemble two thin layers of bread that's stuck together. This means that the dough inside was cooked properly.

You can make your flat bread as thin as you can through practice and using a wider cooking surface. Just make sure you do not let it dry up too much during cooking.

I'll have another batch made and I'll add the picture of how to puff up the bread on the skillet. For now, I hope you enjoy this posting.

Until next time!