Bhatura - Puffed Yogurt Bread

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Written by Archana Doshi

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Bhatoora or Bhatura or Batoora Batura is a traditional North Indian Punjabi classic bread savored with Chola - together called as "Chola Batura". This is a spongy deep fried bread is made with yogurt and yeast, made to ferment so that it gets that little sour taste from the yogurt which gives that classic favor and puffiness. Adding some flavor like nigella seeds, fennel seeds or ajwain seeds enhances the flavor of this bread.

Yeast is not traditionally added to the batura recipe. The addition of yeast is purely an invention when I used the recipe of Naan to make batura's. They turned out phenomenal, fluffy and very texture full, so pleasing to the palates that they melted in the mouth. It also was not greasy like the tradional batura's that did not contain yeast.

Serve it with any indian gravy vegetable dish or as the classic "Chola Batura" and it would be a sumptuous meal for the family.

Makes: 16 batura's
Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour (or 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose flour)
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 tablespoons of warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (Make sure its freshly bought store yeast and not an opened one)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Oil for deep frying

An Alternative Addition to yeast and eggs is to 1 cup of boiled grated potatoes and 1 tablespoon rawa/semolina and knead it along with the flour. Adding potatoes makes it soft and fluffy. The addition of rawa/semolina gives it the crispiness.

Method

In a large bowl add the flour and oil. With your hands, blend the oil into the flour until it forms coarse crumbs. You can do this in a stand mixer as well to ease the process of mixing the dough.

Stir water and yeast until yeast is completely dissolved. Now make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the yogurt, sugar, egg (optional), salt, ajwain seeds, nigella seeds and yeast mixture. Knead into the flour and until the whole dough collects into a mass. It will be sticky.

Wash and wipe your hands clean and oil the palms of your hands with a tablespoon of it . Now knead the dough with the oiled hands until smooth and shiny adding additional flour if too sticky, for about 10 minutes. Cover the bowl of dough with a loose fitting lid and allow it to rest for about 1 hour or more until the dough has risen/doubled in volume. At this stage; punch down the dough, knead gently and divide the dough into 16 equal portions.

Preheat oil in a frying pan/karhai.

With a rolling pin, quickly roll out each dough balls into a 5 inch circles; cover them with a damp cloth and set aside until you are ready to fry them.

When the oil is hot and ready about 190C, gently slip 1 bread into the oil. Fry the bread, turning once until puffed, cooked and lightly browned about 40 to 50 seconds. Using a slotted spoon drain the excess oils and transfer the fried bread to a paper towel to absorb excess oil. The bread will be light and spongy. Serve with a vegetable gravy of your choice or tha plain old classic "Chola Bhature"

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