When Life Hands you Bananas

We have all been faced with bananas that have gone past their prime. In that case, there are options. They can always be thrown out. Or, they can be frozen (whole, in their skins) until there is time to make something with them. Or, they can be made into banana bread, or banana cake right away. 

I was faced with this decision a couple of days ago, where the three remaining bananas on the counter were decidedly more brown that either of us felt was edible. I sat down to decide how I wanted to proceed with a recipe for banana cake. I was surprised to discover I had no banana cake recipe yet posted. I used to make the banana cake recipe from my very old copy of "Joy of Cooking." There was never anything wrong with that recipe, but I know I had another recipe from a cooking class somewhere that was far richer and also delicious. And then I am always thinking these days of how to add some fiber or other goodness into a recipe. 

Banana Cake with Broiled Topping

There are various considerations in making a banana cake. Two eggs or three? How much butter is needed? All white sugar or some brown sugar added? Sour milk, buttermilk, or another such as yogurt or sour cream? Spices or no spices? Nuts or no nuts? And then flour...which I really wanted to replace some of with Kamut flour.

Banana Cake with Broiled Topping

As usual, I read a whole lot of recipes to see what others did in their banana cakes. In general, I think it comes down to how rich does one want the cake to be. I considered going the route of using ground flax seed instead of eggs, but opted to stick with the eggs, three of them. I really saw no recipes that used sour cream, and I wondered why. I opted to use sour cream. I used some brown sugar, half the amount of flour as ground whole Kamut flour, and since that would be heavier, instead of all-purpose flour for the remainder, used cake flour to round it out and lighten a bit. If you choose to make this with only all-purpose flour, just use 3 cups. I added in nuts. Originally I was going to add walnuts, but when I looked into using a broiled topping without coconut (not easy to find, mind you), nuts were the featured ingredient. My husband doesn't like walnuts, but if they are ground finely in a cake or other recipe, and he can't see them or truly taste the individual nuts, it's okay. But, if I used walnuts in the cake, and then chopped walnuts on top, that would be unacceptable. So, I went with pecans, both in the cake and on top, because he likes pecans just fine.

Only in one case did I see someone use a little bit of cinnamon in their banana cake. Somehow, despite how much I truly love cinnamon, whether true cinnamon or cassia, I just could not enjoy that combination in my mind. Instead, I used nutmeg. Ultimately, though I grated a whole teaspoon of nutmeg into the cake, I could not taste it. This makes me wonder if it was of any use whatsoever to have used any spice at all? 

Once I got all my ducks in a row as to what I wanted to do with the cake, I then put thought to frosting. I just was not in the mood for frosting. Long ago, I recalled making a cake of some kind, and it called for a topping that was spread over the just-baked cake, then broiled. With no idea where I might have that recipe, I again went online. I found that everywhere I searched for a broiled topping, it contained copious quantities of coconut. Since coconut is another thing my husband does not like, I had to change my search parameters. Even then, most recipes contained coconut. I eventually found two recipes that were made with nuts instead of coconut (here and here). There was not a huge difference between them, but I opted for more nuts than one and less butter than either. It came out delicious. Use this Broiled Topping recipe on most any one layered cake.

Banana Cake with Broiled Topping

Banana Cake

Makes one 9 x 13-inch cake

3 very ripe bananas (about 1½ cups)
2 teaspoons lime or lemon juice 
10 tablespoons unsalted butter,
    at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature 
1½ cups whole grain Kamut flour
1½ cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 
    (or ½ teaspoon pre-ground nutmeg)
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup chopped or ground nuts  
    (walnuts or pecans)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease or spray with cooking spray a 9 x 13-inch baking dish and set aside.

In a bowl, smash the bananas with a fork and stir in the lime or lemon juice; set aside.

In another bowl, combine the flours with the salt, baking soda, nutmeg and baking powder; set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until light, about 3 minutes. Add in the granulated sugar slowly, until well combined, then add the brown sugar and beat the mixture for at least 3 minutes more. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is well combined before adding the next. Add in a third of the flour mixture on low speed until combined. Add in the mashed banana mixture and beat until incorporated. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat to combine. Fold in the nuts and the sour cream. Pour into the prepared baking dish and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, or at most with a couple of crumbs. 

Top the cake with your favorite frosting once cooled, or use this Broiled Topping recipe while the cake is just out of the oven:

Broiled Topping

Broiled Topping

Makes enough for one 9 x 13-inch cake

1 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup heavy cream
1½ cups chopped pecans or walnuts

In a saucepan, combine the first three ingredients and bring to boil, stirring. Add the nuts off the heat and spread evenly over a just-baked cake. Set the cake under a broiler about 3-inches from the heat source. Broil until bubbling all over, about 1 to 3 minutes or so. Watch closely. The topping remains soft until the cake has cooled, then the topping dries.




My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

A Savory Supper Dish

After my last blogs about desserts, I thought it was time to give attention to something savory. Last evening I created a "Stroganoff" of a sort, using turkey breast cutlets. While considering what I would do to create this recipe, I thought about serving it with fettuccine, and then thought about making my own pasta. 

I do not expect that many people will be making their own noodles or fettuccine for dinner, so please feel free to cook some boxed pasta to serve with the "Stroganoff." But just on the off-chance that you are interested in making your own pasta, I will give you the recipe for what I did. I have been measuring things in grams more and more often. I have a scale, and grams are nicely small, so with tiny amounts of things, grams come in handy. If you do not have a scale, so sorry, because I never gave thought to how much the measurements would have been in either ounces or by volume measure.

Turkey Stroganoff over Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Just to make all this even more complex, I wanted to give my bag of "00" Pasta flour a go, so I used some of that. Also, I have recently made pasta twice in my pasta making machine and used freshly ground Kamut® Khorasan grain (ground using my electric grain mill). I had read that Kamut® Khorasan is a more "relaxed" grain, and tends not to try and pull back quite so much when rolling it out. This is very handy when making pasta. As it happens, Kamut® Khorasan grain is a pale golden color, so the pasta is a pretty light gold, instead of brown, like with whole wheat. It also produced beautiful spaghetti, which held together nicely and did not become brittle. It was beautiful pasta! So I truly had no other reason to use the "00" flour, aside from that I had it and had not yet tried it out.

Then, to add to the whole thing, since I was making Stroganoff, with lots of mushrooms, I thought I would make the pasta mushroom flavored. I have a quantity of dried Shiitake mushrooms, so I took a couple of hands full and smashed them into smaller bits, then removed stems, since the stems are so hard. Then I put the pieces of dried mushroom into my coffee/spice grinder (used only to grind spices) and ground them fine. I passed the powder through a fine sieve, and then weighed out the 14 grams I had decided on. None of this is strictly necessary. The pasta can be made without the mushroom powder. Simply add 14 grams more of either the "00" pasta flour, or 14 grams more of the Kamut® Khorasan flour. As it turned out, the mushroom powder made the pasta as dark as it would have been with whole wheat flour. Oh well.

Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Kamut Mushroom Fettuccine

Makes just over a pound

180 grams Kamut® Khorasan flour
170 grams "00" pasta flour, or all-purpose flour
14 grams dried mushroom powder
3 large eggs
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Place the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Whisk the eggs slightly and pour them into the well and add in 3 of the tablespoons of water. Using your hands, begin stirring in the middle, slowly incorporating more and more of the dry mixture. The goal is for all the dry mixture to be moistened, so the dough comes together. If it does not, drizzle in a little of the remaining tablespoon of water at a time until it does come together. Turn the dough out onto a surface and begin kneading. The dough should be quite stiff. Knead for at least 5 minutes. At this point, you can either roll the dough out by hand, making it quite thin, then rolling the flour-dusted dough into a cigar and slicing across in ¼-inch increments, to make fettuccine, or, if you happen to have a Kitchen Aid mixer, with a pasta roller and linguine and fettuccine cutters, you can roll out the dough using the pasta roller, then cutting with the fettuccine cutter. If not ready to cook right away, toss with a little flour so the individual strands do not stick together. Cook in a good quantity of salted water until al dente.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back to the Entree! 

As I mentioned above, I have a quantity of dried Shiitake mushrooms. When we lived in the greater Chicago area, back in the late '90s, we visited Chinatown there. Someone was selling huge bags of these dried shiitake mushrooms, for a very inexpensive price. We bought a bag, and After all these years, I still have a gallon sized container left. My husband and I both love mushrooms, and these dried ones, once soaked, are a very "meaty" type of addition to a dish. Far more so than freshly cooked mushrooms. Since I had not yet gone grocery shopping for the week, I did not have any fresh mushrooms, so I just grabbed a couple of large hands full of these dried shiitakes and poured boiling water over them. After the time it took me to make the fettuccine, I got back to the mushrooms, which were ready to use. I removed stems and sliced each one, then weighed them, out of curiosity. They were almost exactly 8 ounces. 

Had I bought a pound of cremini mushrooms, sliced and cooked them, I doubt that the cooked mushrooms would have been even 8 ounces, since they let out an amazing amount of liquid when cooking. In that case I might have added in more, but you can decide how much you love mushrooms when you make this dish. I would start with a pound.

I have a lot of dry thyme, still in the pot it grew in during last summer. The tiny, dried leaves are perfectly useful, so I snipped a few sprigs and stripped the leaves to use in this dish. However fresh thyme would be perfect, in which case double the amount. Or if using dried thyme leaves in little spice jars, use as much as you prefer. My amount of thyme leaves were quite fluffy, not having been broken up at all, so start with a half teaspoon, if that is the case.

The use of Sherry or dry white wine is something I love to do when cooking mushrooms. Adding in the wine and letting it cook out completely just adds a dimension of flavor that I love. It is not absolutely necessary. The same goes with the Chicken marinade by Lea & Perrins. Regular Worcestershire would be just perfect as well, and most people have that in their array of pantry items.

Turkey Stroganoff

Serves 4 - 6

Turkey Stroganoff

1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil, more, if needed
1 tablespoon butter, more if needed
1 pound turkey breast cutlets, sliced into ½-inch wide strips
1½ teaspoons salt, divided
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 - 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
½ cup dry Sherry or other dry white wine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
a few grinds of black pepper
2 teaspoons paprika, preferably Hungarian
2 teaspoons of Lea & Perrins "Rooster Booster" or Chicken Marinade (or just use regular Worcestershire sauce)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
¾ to 1 cup of sour cream

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the mushrooms with ½ teaspoon of the salt until all the liquids have cooked out and evaporated and the mushrooms are browned. This takes a while; be patient. Turn the mushrooms out into a bowl and set aside.

In the same skillet, adding more oil and butter if necessary, fry the turkey and another ½ teaspoon salt until the turkey begins to brown in spots. Turn the turkey out into the bowl with the mushrooms.

In the same skillet, add more oil and butter if needed and turn the heat to low. Add in the onions and the last ½ teaspoon of salt and cook slowly, stirring often, until lightly golden. Add in the garlic and continue to sauté until the onions are golden. Add in 2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves and the Sherry and raise the heat to cook out the Sherry until almost dry. Sprinkle on the flour, pepper & paprika and stir until no white flour shows. Lower heat and add in 2 cups of water (or unsalted stock) and allow the mixture to come to a boil, stirring often. Add in the chicken marinade (or Worcestershire) and Dijon and cook until the mixture has boiled for at least 10 minutes to cook out the flour. Check for seasoning and correct, if needed. Return the mushrooms and turkey to the skillet and stir in, reheating. Off the heat, stir in the sour cream to combine.

Serve over rice or noodles.



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Making Pita Bread

Baking with Julia

I bought the book, "Baking with Julia," by Dorie Greenspan, many years ago. I have made many delicious recipes from the book, many times altering or changing out ingredients as I tried something new. For example, substituting Spelt or Kamut® Khorasan, Teff or rice flour for the white all-purpose or whole wheat called for. Whatever new grain is available, I try it out. I have made Pita breads from this book in the past, possibly over 10 years ago, and at the time I had notes in the book that I used Spelt and Kamut® Khorasan in the recipe and it turned out great. Of course, both these grains are some older forms of wheat, so why wouldn't they? At that time, I bought the Kamut and Spelt already pre-ground. I have made the bagels numerous times, using maple syrup instead of sugar and again, spelt, Kamut® Khorasan and rice flour instead of the white flour called for. These too, were fabulous.

Kamut & Teff Pita Bread

While I do not want to just set recipes out here in my blog that belong to someone else, to be fair, using different grains, even wheat of a sort, can thoroughly change how a recipe works. I have made many a loaf of bread, whether "winging it" on my own or from recipes, so I have a good idea of how a dough should look and feel and act. Some of my experiments have not been the greatest, though I haven't made anything inedible.

Kamut & Teff Pita Breads

With all this in mind, I want to put my version of the Pita Bread here, because they are delicious and beautiful. One thing that I have more and more come to rely on is measuring by weight. Since using the bread books by Peter Rheinart and Stanley Ginsburg, I have gotten more and more accustomed to the far less fallible results that weighing the ingredients affords. When I set out to make Pita breads yesterday, I opted to use Kamut® Khorasan and Teff. Since I own my own electric grain mill, I buy all my grains whole, grinding them myself, with the far better quality resulting from freshly ground grains and seeds.

I am not sure why, outside of the fact that I went by measure and not weight, I ended up having to add more and more white flour once I got to kneading, but the dough was so wet I just could not handle it at all. All in all, I would estimate that at least ⅔ of the flour involved was Kamut® Khorasan and Teff, the other third was certainly white flour, due to this weight/measure difficulty. One quarter cup of the minuscule Teff seeds ground into nearly a cup of Teff flour! I have a feeling this is part of the problem. The ground flour was not at all compacted, so there was not enough by weight to be the proper equivalent. In all, I had to add an extra 1½ cups of white flour, beyond what the recipe called for in total cups.

Kamut Grain

The Pita still came out great, once I got the dough to the right consistency. The Pita breads can be baked in the oven, preferably on a pizza stone, or in a skillet on the stove. The main thing required is that there be sufficient heat on the bottom to create the rise, making the pocket. The recipe cautions that if the pizza stone or quarry tiles in the oven are not quite hot enough, there may be uneven rising, if the breads rise at all. But once the tiles are hot enough, the rest is smooth sailing. Even if the breads do not rise, they are still wonderful as a flatbread. In the forefront of the photo at top, I show one of the first 4 breads that got bubbles, but never lifted into a pocket, where the breads behind it (and all the remainder) all puffed up perfectly. The photo immediately above right shows the first poorly risen breads behind, with the first successful Pita proudly in front.

Kamut® Khorasan is a very "blond" colored grain. When ground, it produces a lovely creamy-looking flour, so the resulting bread is a lovely light blond color. Teff is one of the smallest grains, about the size of a poppy seed, and packed with nutrition. It is used to make the Ethiopian "injera" bread, something I have wanted to try, but so far it hasn't come up on my agenda! Another day!

Kamut® Khorasan & Teff Pita Breads

Made 20 Pita breads

Kamut & Teff Pita Breads

SPONGE:

1 teaspoon instant yeast
2½ cups lukewarm water
2½ cups Kamut® Khorasan flour (320 g)

FINAL INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1½ cups Kamut® Khorasan flour (192 g)

1 cup teff flour (154 g)

*up to 1+ cups extra all-purpose flour, optional, if needed


The night before making the breads, combine the Sponge ingredients in a bowl. Use a wooden spoon and stir in just one direction, 100 times. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

Next morning, remove the sponge from the fridge and set on the counter for an hour to come to room temperature. 

Sprinkle on the salt and the olive oil, then add in the final Kamut® Khorasan flour and the teff flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring again in the same one direction. If the dough is not stiff enough, add all-purpose flour, ½ cup at a time, until the dough is too stiff to stir. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes. The dough should be quite stiff, tacky, but not sticky. Grease a clean bowl and set the dough in the bowl, turning once to grease all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and set on a counter to rise until doubled in bulk. 

Once ready to work with the dough, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, setting a pizza stone on the lowest rack. Allow ample time for the stone to heat through.

Divide the dough in half, setting one half back into the bowl while working with the other half. Divide the half piece of dough evenly into 8 or 10 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth ball and set aside. Take one ball, flatten it well, then using a rolling pin, roll the dough to less than ¼-inch thick. Set it aside. Repeat with the next ball of dough. Depending on how many pitas your pizza stone will hold (with such a hot oven, it was easiest for me to bake just two at a time), roll that many out, then flop them onto the hot stone. Close the oven door immediately and time them for 3 to 5 minutes. I found mine were perfectly puffed and baked at 4 minutes. Continue rolling balls of dough while the ones in the oven bake. Remove the baked Pitas from the oven with tongs, then again flop more dough onto the stone. Repeat this until all the dough is used. Once the first half is done, do the same with the second piece of the dough. 

This makes a lot of Pita, outside of having them for a party. They can be wrapped and frozen for a month or so, if needed. Reheat them on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven to bring to temperature.



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Pancakes Fluffy and Light

First off, I don't make pancakes too often anymore, mainly just because I don't need the gratuitous carbs. I do love pancakes though, and I had been talking with our friend Rich about buckwheat and Kamut® Khorasan. I wrote quite a bit on the subject of Kamut® Khorasan in my blog of November 21, 2014, so I won't go into all that again. I will say that I love trying out new and different grains. And besides, I just love buckwheat pancakes. 

Buckwheat and Kamut® Khorasan Pancakes

A Bit about Buckwheat

Buckwheat: triangular, green or tan in color

Buckwheat, Fagopyrum esculentum, is not wheat, or even related to wheat. It is not a grass either, nor is it related to rice. It is instead related to such plants as sorrel, knotweed and rhubarb. Because the seeds are eaten, it is sometimes called a pseudo-cereal. Buckwheat is a very ancient food, first domesticated and cultivated around Southeast Asia as far back as 6,000 BCE. The little "seeds", triangular in shape, are actually fruits encasing a seed. The fruits are so closely wrapped around their seed that it appears that the outer coating is just a hull. The seed coat is green or tan, and darkens the flour when the seeds are ground. Buckwheat contains no gluten, so it is considered safe for those with gluten intolerance. 

Buckwheat was once used widely, but its use tapered off with the rise of other grains, easier to grow and produce. Of late, resurgence of interest in ancient grains has led once again to buckwheat's popularity. Buckwheat is commonly made into noodles (soba), blinis, pancakes. There is also buckwheat honey. It is used as a thickening agent in soups. It can be cooked and eaten as porridge. Buckwheat hulls have been used to stuff pillows, as the hulls easily adjust to the shape of head and do not conduct heat as do many synthetic products. This is only a very brief synopsis of buckwheat history and use, but hopefully it will give some idea.

On to the Pancakes!

So as we were talking, Rich and I, he allowed that he would certainly like to have some pancakes, if only once, as he is also trying to keep his carbs on the low side. This morning seemed a good time to try out this recipe. I wanted to use the Kamut ® Khorasan instead of regular wheat flour, and I added in just a small bit of regular white cake flour to lighten up the mix. I love to use buttermilk in my pancakes, but when I don't have buttermilk in the house, I do generally have evaporated milk and vinegar or lemon juice. Mixing up a half evaporated milk / half water mixture and adding in about a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon/lime juice per cup of milk makes a very acceptable substitute for buttermilk. Since my husband bought me a Wonder Mill, I have been enjoying the ability to just instantly grind a grain or seed as needed. I ground ½ cup each of Kamut® Khorasan and buckwheat, to make the needed ¾ cup each for the recipe. I still had just a little left over, but that makes no big difference to me - I will toss that into something else as I am baking or cooking. 

Texture of Buckwheat and Kamut® Khorasan Pancakes

When I placed the Kamut® Khorasan into the Wonder Mill, I absolutely forgot to reset the dial to fine grind. As it was on coarse grind when the machine started, and it takes mere seconds to grind, the Kamut was done before I even realized. I figured, oh well, so part of the flour would be a little coarse. I turned the dial to fine grind before adding in the buckwheat. As it turned out, Rich, my husband and I all marveled at the fluffy and lovely texture of these pancakes. I am not sure of the why, but these came out tender and perfect and really, really good! For full grain pancakes, they were very light.

Buckwheat & Kamut® Khorasan Pancakes 

Buckwheat and Kamut® Khorasan Pancakes

Makes about 16 pancakes

¾ cup Kamut® Khorasan flour
¾ cup buckwheat flour
¼ cup cake flour
2 tablespoons sugar (or substitute 2 packets of Stevia sweetener)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk or soured milk (see above)
2 eggs
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

In a mixing bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients and whisk to combine. Separately, mix together the buttermilk, eggs and melted butter. Have a griddle ready at 350 degrees, or a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Use oil, baking spray or whatever grease is preferred and begin ladling out the pancake batter. Once the edges of the batter look dried and there are many bubbles over the surface that leave holes once they burst, flip the pancakes to the other side. The second side will take far less time than the first.
Serve these pancakes as with any other pancakes, with maple syrup, honey, fruit, fruit pie filling or whatever favorite thing you like with pancakes.  


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, trying new things weekly. I would love to hear from you, to help me continue my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest and sign up for my Newsletter.

Chapatis are an Indian Version of Tortillas

Meaning to get to this blog days ago, I have been doing other things since returning from our trip. I made Lamb Korma last week and decided that while my husband is absolutely wild about Indian Naan bread, this time I was going to give a go with making Chapatis instead. I am not sure if he cared for them, truly. He said nothing at all. Still, I cannot completely go with making only what my husband will eat; it's just a little too prohibitive for my tastes. Sometimes I absolutely must try something that intrigues me.

Chapatis

Kamut® Khorasan

Kamut® Khorasan

Part of the reason I decided on something other than Naan Bread (apart from the fact that it is, by popular acclaim, the only bread accompaniment for Indian meals in my house), is that while on our trip, I stopped at The Whole Foods Market and found Kamut® Khorasan berries (triticum turgidum ssp. turanicum) in the bulk aisle! I have used Kamut® in past, as a flour that was a variation on regular wheat flour, and that so many are allergic to. It has been available in flour form for quite some time. Kamut® Khorasan is an ancient strain of wheat, along with another called "Emmer". These two tetraploid strains have 28 chromosomes instead of the 42 found in our hexaploid strain of durum wheat of today. Kamut® Khorasan berries are nearly twice the size of our modern wheat berries. When I bought Kamut® flour in past, I thought that Kamut® was the name of the type of wheat, but was in error. The name of this grain is actually Khorasan, referring to a historical region in modern Afghanistan and northern Iraq. The title of "Kamut®" Khorasan was given later by two brothers in Montana. Growing this strain of wheat in hopes of preserving the strain cleanly, they registered the name of Kamut.

Side by Side Size comparison of the grains

So, I bought about a pound or so of the whole Kamut® Khorasan berries and had no particular plan for how to use them. In reading about both the Kamut® itself and recipes for Chapatis, these flat bread recipes call for a whole grain flour. Kamut® has a lovely nutty, buttery flavor and has far less bitterness than our modern wheat. Since Chapatis are made with whole grain flour, and since Afghanistan and Iraq are setting just above India (Northern Indian cuisine has much influence from these areas), I felt that possibly Kamut® Khorasan would be the perfect flour for these breads. To top it all off, my husband recently bought me a Wonder Mill grain mill, so this would make quick work of milling the Kamut® Khorasan berries.

Chapati recipes are all basically the same. Use a whole grain flour. Moisten it enough with water to be pliable but not wet. Knead it. Make Chapatis. The basic ratio of flour to liquid is identical everywhere I looked for comparison. The only technicality would be if you live in a very dry climate or a very humid climate, as this affects how much water will actually be needed. If you live in a humid place like Florida or Louisiana for example, your flour will already be more water saturated than if you live in Arizona. I live in neither of these places, but climate in the high plains is often dry. Add to that the heat running in the house for more than a month already, with temperatures already been dipping below zero regularly. Dry.

On to the Chapatis

As far as Indian breads go, there are quite a few types and styles. Even Naan, which is getting to be very well known, can be made as a yeast dough or may be leavened with simple baking powder. The store varieties are certainly not yeast breads, and most very closely resemble large, soft flatbreads or pitas without pockets. Chapatis are more similar to a flour tortilla, in that they are most basically a simple and unleavened, thin, flat cake, traditionally cooked on a flat griddle called a tava. At home a hot skillet works just fine. Other Indian breads are many. To name a few, there are rotis (similar to chapatis), parathas (larger, thicker, fried), puris (fried and puffed up) and papadums (crispy). Each of these is unleavened. The differences are in how they are made, thickness, size and texture. I hope to make parathas again sometime soon. I have made them in past and they turned out very well. (If any of these descriptions is in error, please pardon me. I have not a drop of Indian blood in me, but am endlessly fascinated with all things Indian).

Flour water & oil mixed    |    dough well kneaded    |    rested and cut in portions    |    dough rolled into 6 - 7-inch circles

It is most common to make all of these breads with whole grain flour, though some are made with white flour. The recipe's ratio of flour to water is 3 parts whole grain flour to 1 part water. Some recipes call for added oil or ghee; some do not. I added a little oil to my recipe. Some recipes call for mixing the ingredients and kneading briefly to combine, while some recipes call for kneading for longer periods of time. Longer kneading yields a more elastic dough, easily rolled and shaped without tearing. 

I spent some time here on the detail of using Kamut® Khorasan flour. Whole wheat flour may as easily be used. It is an option to leave the dough, once kneaded, for a minimum of an hour, and even better if it is left overnight, before proceeding to roll out the chapatis.

Chapatis

Chapatis

Makes 8 chapatis

1½ cups whole grain flour; wheat or Kamut® Khorasan
½ cup water
1 tablespoon of oil or ghee
more oil or ghee for cooking the chapatis

In a bowl, combine the flour and water, mixing to combine. Add the oil or ghee and blend in. Turn the mixture out onto a very lightly floured surface or an oiled surface. Knead the dough for at least 5 minutes; more ideally for about 9 minutes. This develops the gluten in the flour, making it easier to roll out and form the chapatis without tearing. Set the dough aside to rest, covered, for at least one hour, or longer if possible. If leaving to rest overnight, place the dough, well wrapped, in the refrigerator until ready to use.

dough circle just placed in hot pan | bubbles forming under the surface | flipped over and nearly done     

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized pieces. Roll each portion of dough into a smooth ball. Lightly flour a surface and roll the dough into a thin circle of about 6 or 7-inches diameter. Heat a skillet to medium heat. Add in a small amount of oil or ghee to the pan and place one of the circles of dough in the hot pan. Almost immediately it will begin to form bubbles. Turn the chapati to cook the opposite side once the first side has well browned spots, about 2 minutes. Once flipped over, the opposite side should also have nicely browned spots, about 1 minute longer. Remove to a towel lined container and continue to make each individual chapati in the same manner.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.