Bature ~ An Indian Fried Bread

I remember walking into a restaurant in Delhi, as a kid, and having chole bature from there. It was one of the amazing thing I had during our Delhi trip, other than the Agra pethas. The taste still lingers round my tastebuds.

My mom used to make it too, esp. on holidays. We would just sit down and hardly bother about the count of batures that we would gulp down. They have always been my favorite.

While I was carrying Jordan, the craving towards Chana bature grew up and every time I was at an Indian restaurant I would search there menu to find out if they served it and order it. Usually they turned out greasy and used to make me sick. That's when I thought of trying it at home. And this recipe helped me get the perfect and delicious bature made at home.

If you are a Chana bature fan like me, I would insist that you go by this recipe and make it. You are gonna love it.

Ingredients

1. 4 cups of all purpose flour
2. 1 1/2 cups of plain yogurt
3. 1 tsp of baking powder
4. 1/4 tsp of baking soda
5. 1/2 tsp of salt
6. Oil for deep frying

Method

• In a bowl, mix the all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
• Add curd to the dry ingredients little by little while you knead it into a soft and slightly sticky dough.
• Cling wrap it and keep it in the refrigerator for about 6-8 hours. During this time, it would rise a bit. Punch down the dough and knead it lightly. 
• Pull out lime sized balls of dough. Dip them in the flour and roll it out into circles/discs.
• Heat up the oil in a deep frying pan. Once hot, turn down the heat to medium and drop in the rolled out bature.
• Fry it on both sides by flipping it, untill it puffs up and turns golden in colour. Remove it from the oil and place it in a colander or over a plate lined with tissue paper, to drain out excess oil.

Tips

1. Fry the bature one by one. Once you drain out the fried bature, drop in the next one.
2. Using a laddle with holes, keep pushing/pressing the bature, gently, while they are dropped into the oil. This would help them puff up. 

Recipe courtesy : Cooking and me