On my last night in Bangalore back in November, we had an amazing home meal. Onion and potato subji, tomatoey sev curry, kadhi, and bajra (millet flour) roti. By this time, we had gone to every restaurant on my list (pani puri at Gangotri, kati roll at Kabab Corner, hyderbadi biryani, Kerala food at Karavali, dosa at Chalukya) and were quite sick of restaurant food! Anyways, the bajra roti was sooo good and soft and I thought, I just have to try and make that! I can never get normal rotis quite right, but hey it was worth trying considering we can’t get them fresh at the Indian market.

I got mixed up and thought I needed to get something called jowar flour which ended up being sorghum, not millet. So these are jowar roti instead of bajra roti, but they were still soft and considering I have only had each kind of roti once, I can’t remember the difference. I look forward to making bajra roti in the future as well as the yummy onion and potato subji and sev curry we had!

Both flours are gluten free. We are trying to reduce the amount of gluten we get in our diets, but it is so hard.

Apparently jowar roti is traditionally made just using the hands, no rolling pin. But on Aayi’s blog where I found the recipe, she went the rolling pin route, and I thought I’d try with a torilla press. Fantastic! We had the jowar roti with Marathi black eyed peas and Marathi style tindora.

1 1/2 cups water
Salt
1 cup jowar flour

1. Heat the water and salt and bring to a boil.
2. Stir in the jowar flour and take off the heat.
3. Kneed for 3-5 minutes adding a little flour if it is too sticky.
4. Split into 7-8 little balls.
5. Take a gallon plastic freezer bag and slit the sides (this is to keep the roti from sticking to the tortilla press). Open a tortilla press and lay the plastic over both sides of the press. Put one ball in the press and squeeze down. Open and peel off the roti. Continue with the rest of the balls.
6. Heat a non-stick flat pan to medium high and cook each roti on each side until browned and cooked through.