Bhatura
A soft maida dough rested with curd and leavening, rolled and fried so it balloons — the bread half of chole bhature.
Drafted — not yet cooked in our kitchen
- Hands on
- 17 min
- Total
- 2 hr 17 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- medium
Maida, curd and a couple of hours of waiting, rolled a little thicker than a chapati and pushed under hot oil until it balloons. The two things that decide whether it puffs are the oil temperature and how evenly it is rolled.
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Ingredients
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Method
Sift the baking powder and soda through the maida with the rava, salt and sugar, so they are evenly dispersed before anything wet arrives — soda that goes in later as a lump leaves a bitter spot. Work in the curd and the oil, then add warm water in small additions, about 140 ml in all, and knead to a soft dough: softer than a roti dough, just short of sticky.
Look for: The dough is smooth, takes a light sheen, and a finger pressed into it leaves a dent that fills back slowly rather than springing straight out.
8–12 min · bowl
Oil the surface of the dough, cover it with a damp cloth and leave it somewhere warm. Part of what the rest buys is a dough that rolls thin without springing back; how much the curd and the leavening add over the same hours is the part this recipe has not settled.
Look for: Softened and slack — pull a corner and it stretches rather than tearing back. It may have grown a little or hardly at all; the stretch is the test, not the size.
120–240 min · bowl
Knock the dough back and divide it into eight, keeping the balls under a cloth. Roll each into an oval or round about three millimetres thick — thicker than a chapati — on a lightly oiled surface rather than a floured one, since dry flour carried into the oil burns and darkens it. Roll one, fry it, roll the next: discs left standing skin over and puff worse.
Look for: Even thickness across the whole disc. A thin patch in the middle is where it will split instead of puffing.
8–12 min
Heat the oil in a kadai. Slide one bhatura in and press it under the surface with the back of a slotted spoon for a few seconds — that is what makes it balloon. Turn once it has puffed, and take it out as soon as the second side colours.
Look for: A scrap of dough dropped in should rise to the surface in about two seconds without browning instantly — that is the temperature. The bhatura should puff within five seconds of being pushed under; if it sits flat, the oil is not hot enough. Take it out when both faces are blistered and the colour of pale honey, with a few darker freckles — past golden brown it will be hard rather than soft.
1–2 min · medium-high heat · kadai
Drain briefly and serve straight away, with chole. A bhatura collapses within a couple of minutes of leaving the oil, which is why they are fried as people eat rather than stacked.
About this dish
Bhatura is a leavened fried bread and the standing partner to chole. The leavening is what separates it from a puri: a puri is unleavened atta dough fried straight away, while this dough waits. Kitchens split on how to leaven it — curd with baking powder and soda, yeast, or a longer rest with nothing but curd. The rava is optional, and is usually described as adding bite to the finished bread.