rajasthani cuisine Archives

Stuffed Baati (baked)

Stuffed Baati is a traditional Rajasthani savoury dish. It is prepared with wheat flour, and stuffed with boiled potatoes mix. Traditionally, stuffed baati is a roasted dish and later it is immersed in melted desi ghee (clarified butter) which gives it a wonderful combination of crispy outer layer and softer insides.

We get a separate baati oven to roast as now in our modern kitchen roasting baati in traditional way is not possible. For more information on traditional method of preparing plain baati, you can refer my earlier post Plain Baati (traditional Rajasthani food)

Generally, I prepare this complete traditional Rajasthani platter of besan ke ladoo (Besan ke ladoo), panchmel daal (Panchmel daal), baati and churma – wheat flour (Churma (wheat flour)) and besan (Besan churma) – on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi festival. But this time, after a few days of Ganesha festival there was a potluck arranged at my husband’s office. So I decided to send panchmel daal and stuffed baked baati. As I don’t have baati oven till now, I baked them in my OTG.

Oh, it was a lot of baati baking day!!

I baked stuffed baati dough in two batches – initial 60 baatis for potluck and another 30 in second batch for our lunch and some for my neighbouring friends.

It was a big tiring day, but in the afternoon my husband’s message refreshed me and I was re-energised!

My dish was appreciated by all and was ranked first under vegetarian dishes category 💃💃💃💃

Try these stuffed baked baatis once and feel free to at add any stuffing of your choice. It could be mixed veggies with paneer (cottage cheese), cheese, fresh grated coconut or roasted gram flour with spices too.

Ingredients:

Wheat flour 3 cups
Baking soda 1/2 tsp
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
Salt 1 tsp
Carom seeds (ajwain) 1+1/2 tsp
Water 1+1/2 cup (reduce or increase 1-2 tbsp as per requirement,normal temperature)
Oil/desi ghee (clarified butter) 4 tbsp
Melted Desi ghee 1/4 cup (extra)
Boiled Potato mixture with spices

Process:

Collect all dry ingredients in a big vessel so that kneading is easy.

Pour melted ghee and with the help of water knead smooth dough.

Peel boiled potatoes and add salt, red chilli powder, asafoetida, garam masala, dry mango powder, grated ginger, finely chopped green chillies and green coriander leaves. If you like the taste, can add little bit of chaat masala too.

Mash potatoes and mix everything together. Potatoes mix is ready.

Divide the dough in 40-45 gms balls and roll them smooth.

Flatten one ball of dough with the help of rolling pin or simply with your fingers.

Place in between little bit of potato mix and close it.

Roll this filled baati gently in between your palms to make it smooth. This way complete all baatis and place them in your ghee greased baking tray. Brush them with melted ghee nicely and bake in a pre-heated oven at 185 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes or till they are nicely brown.

Once again apply melted ghee all over the baked baatis and relish them with panchmel daal or as a snack with your tea.

September 22, 2019September 22, 2019

Deeksha Pathak87 Comments

Lahsun (garlic) ki chutney

lahsun (garlic) ki chutney add zing in your food. It is part of traditional Rajasthani cuisine. I have always been blessed with a good neighbourhood. After my marriage, I moved to Chennai and stayed there for 9 months. Later we moved to Jamaica before settling in Bangalore after three years. At all these places I was surrounded by wonderful people in my neighbourhood.

In Jamaica when suddenly my daughter became sick, along with our Indian friends, my Jamaican neighbours were extremely helpful. On the occasion of Apoorva’s 1st birthday celebration, my Jamaican neighbours loved Indian food a lot and they requested to pack some for the next day.

In Jaipur, my parents’ house is blessed with kind and friendly neighbours and food is shared between us frequently. We developed a taste for authentic Rajasthani cuisine because Rajasthani neighbours used to bring food to our house or we were the frequent visitors in their house on several occasions.

So this year, during summer vacation when I visited my parents’ house, all childhood memories were revived. And I was very lucky when we got an invitation from the same neighbours for dinner. We relished all authentic delicacies but I still felt that something was missing from the menu. Then my sister pointed out that garlic chutney is not there. I asked them about the missing dish and got the assurance that before I go back to Bangalore I will surely get “Lahsun ki chutney”.

After coming back to Bangalore I was tempted to prepare this chutney. This chutney is cooked with lots of oil, so we can keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and it will last for at least 2 weeks. We can also use it as a part of gravy for vegetables and tadka for lentils.

In Rajasthan, if you have seen this chutney, you will find that oil will be floating in the container and the chutney is red in colour as lots of dry red chilies are used here. I didn’t want so much oil, so reduced the quantity of oil and instead of dry red chilies, I have used raw red chilies as they were available in my kitchen.

You can check a few more posts in the blog for other chutney recipes also…Imli ki meethi chutney,Tamatar ki chutney,Coriander Chutney (dhaniye ki chutney)

Ingredients :

Peeled garlic cloves 100 gm
Red chili 🌶 50 gm
Oil 1/4 cup
Cumin seeds 1/4 tsp
Salt as per your taste
Asafoetida 1/8 tsp
One small onion and a small tomato 🍅

Process:

Keep peeled garlic cloves, red chilies, tomato and onion together.

Chop onion and tomato and grind everything together in a smooth paste.

In a small wok, heat oil, crackle cumin seeds and asafoetida and add garlic paste. Cook it on sim heat for 15 minutes. Let it cool down completely and use it as any part of your meal.

July 7, 2019January 4, 2021

Deeksha Pathak37 Comments

Panchmel daal

Panchmel daal is a mixture of five daals……….

Toor daal, white split urad daal, chana daal, split yellow or green moong daal and red split masoor daal. So either you can take each type of daal in equal quantity to get the mixture or nowadays you can buy ready pack of mix daal in any supermarket.

In Rajasthan generally it is prepared during some special occasion and is part of a complete wholesome Rajasthani thali and we can have withPlain Baati (traditional Rajasthani food) Plain Baati (traditional Rajasthani food) and Churma (wheat flour).
My mother used to prepare this on traditional “mitti ka chulha” in a clay pot on very low heat and the taste used to be amazing!!!!

Ingredients :

Panchmel daal
Water
Hing (asafoetida)
Jeera (cumin seeds)
Rai (mustard seeds)
Haldi powder (turmeric powder)
Salt
Red chili powder
Chopped onion, green chili and tomato, garlic ginger paste,
Desi ghee/oil
Chopped coriander green leaves

Process:

Soak all daals together for half an hour after washing. Put them in the cooker with salt, haldi powder and water. Switch off the gas after just one whistle and let the cooker cool down. After it has cooled, open it and you will see that daal is not cooked yet.

Now we will cook it on low flame in open heavy bottomed vessel or in cooker itself but without lid.

This way you will get nice texture and taste of dhaba style daal.

In between prepare tadka…….

Heat oil or ghee in a pan…
Let rai, hing and jeera crackle.
Add finely chopped onion….
Once onions are transparent and slightly brown add chopped or grinded tomatoes….
Add one pinch of salt so that they will be cooked fast…
Add ginger garlic paste and chopped green chilles…
And finally, if you want more spicy taste – can add red chilli powder too…

When daal is completely cooked, add tadka and garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve hot with Baati (traditional Rajasthani food) or naan and while serving add little bit of ghee or butter.

Try this daal at home – you will stop ordering this daal in any restaurant or dhabha.

August 27, 2017September 22, 2019

Deeksha PathakLeave a comment

Plain Baati (traditional Rajasthani food)

Plain Baati or saada baati falls into the category of traditional Rajasthani food. It can be cooked very easily without much prior preparation. You just need three or six bricks to make your Choolha (stove), if you don’t have permanent one. Bring some dry uple (made from cow dung) for fire, little salt, wheat flour, water and one vessel to knead the dough. That’s it……..

This is the way migrants from Rajasthan cook baati when there is no rain in their village and they are searching for work in different cities, and eating it with raw onion.
But now this traditional food has taken place in restaurants and hotels with many different types of varieties.

And of course, now you get a separate baati oven in the market.

Here we will be preparing simple wheat flour baati with ajwain (carom seeds) flavour, but not in baati oven, because I don’t have one. I baked baati in my microwave on convection mode and Manish and Apoorva loved them.

INGREDIENTS :

Wheat flour 1+1/2 cup
Salt 3/4 tsp
Desi ghee (melted) 3 tbsp
Ajwain (carom seeds) 1tsp
Baking powder 1/4 tsp
Baking soda 1/4 tsp

Water to knead the dough (at room temperature) as per requirement

Melted desi ghee 1 cup

Method :

Take wheat flour, salt, ghee, ajwain and baking powder in a bowl and mix everything. Take a mix of half milk and half water, but it is optional. You can make do with just water.

Prepare dough by mixing everything .

Dough should be harder than chappati dough…but softer than poori dough. Prepare equal size of balls from this dough and press them slightly between your palms. And with your finger tip gently press in between (as you can see in the pic, impression on baati).

You can bake them on gas oven as well as in microwave on convection mode.
If you are doing on gas oven, keep changing their posotions at regular intervals (by turning upside down).

Initially keep the flame on full for 4-5 minutes…so that baatis will puff up a little, then put the flame on medium or sim….so that baatis are nicely roasted from inside too.
Once they are done….keep ready melted ghee in a big bowl and put all hot baatis in that.

You can leave baatis as it is or after 5/7 minutes take them out and serve when they are hot.

For microwave convection mode, give a brush up with ghee. Preheat oven on 200 degrees. Bake for almost 40 /45 minutes or until baatis start becoming light brown in colour. Change the position of baati in between and again give a brush up with ghee and continue baking. Once they are done, follow the same process of dipping them in melted ghee and serve hot with any daal of your choice.

Don’t blame me if you finish two or three baatis without daal itself because they look so inviting dipped in hot desi ghee!

August 27, 2017September 22, 2019

Deeksha PathakLeave a comment