I have been on a break for a while – traveling for the holidays! Now I am slowly easing my way into my routine. You will start seeing more posts soon 🙂 I have always been fond of Akki Rotti – a crisp flatbread made with rice flour. Growing up, akki rotti was a staple breakfast at least once a week. Most commonly people add onions to akki rotti, but at home I prepare a wide variety of rottis with different vegetables. Some of my personal favorite veggies to add to akki rotti are – capsicum and peas, methi leaves, spring onion, grated carrot, grated radish, grated kohlrabi, … The combinations are endless! Recently, I moved away from making this flatbread with just rice flour. I generally prepare the dough with wheat or a combination of different whole grain flours.
In this recipe, I have used lauki or sorekayi (bottle gourd). To spruce up the taste and color of the rotti, I added some methi/fenugreek leaves. For the dough, I used a combination of wheat and millet flour. You can do this entirely just using wheat or rice flour as well. In this recipe, the combination of some grated coconut, freshly ground pepper and cumin along with some green chillies adds a heavenly taste!
Bottle Gourd Multigrain Flatbread (Sorekayi/Lauki Rotti)
- 3/4 cup wheat flour
- 1/4 cup millet flour
- 1 medium sized bottle gourd
- 1/2 cup fenugreek leaves washed and chopped
- 2 chopped green chillies (or to taste)
- 2 tsp cumin seeds + 1 tsp black pepper – both ground together coarsely/pounded in a mortar and pestle
- 1 tbsp grated coconut
- salt to taste
- 1-2 tsp oil per rotti
Method
- Wash and dry the bottle gourd. Then grate it finely. (I generally don’t peel the bottle gourd)
- In a large mixing bowl add the grated bottle gourd, chopped methi leaves and some salt. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. This will help release water from the vegetables.
- To the vegetables, add the coarsely pounded mixture of cumin-black pepper. Also add the chopped green chillies.
- Add the wheat and millet flours to the bowl and mix well till you get a fairly wet dough. I didn’t need to add any extra water to the flour – but depending on the vegetable you use you might have to add some.
- Wet your fingers lightly. Take about a lemon-sized ball of dough and start patting it out on a non stick skillet. Pat it till you get the patted out dough to be reasonably thin. This will help the flatbread get crisp.
- Make a couple of holes in the centre of the patted out dough. Add some oil around the edges and the centre. Now place the skillet on the stove and let the flat bread cook on medium high heat. Place a lid over the skillet while the flatbread cooks, else the dough will dry out.
- Let the flatbread cook well and become crisp on one side and then gently flip it over to cook on the other side. Each side might take 2-3 minutes to took.
- Once both sides are done crisply, the flatbread or rotti is ready to be served. Traditionally it is served with some chutney or yogurt on the side! This is best served hot straight off the pan.
- You will need to wait till the pan cools to pat the next flatbread. So I generally use two skillets so that I can alternate between them.
