Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Kulcha and fixings

 


 For September, Aparna, of My Diverse Kitchen, was the Kitchen of the Month, and tasked us to make kulcha, an Indian bread, accompanied by a chickpea salsa and a tamarind chutney.  Having just finished cooking from a new Indian cookbook in August, I had all of the ingredients and techniques at hand.

First, I made the chutney.  It seemed a little thick and was definitely tart, but, it was a good compliment for the chickpea salsa.

The chickpea salsa was next.  The dried chickpeas took nearly all day to cook to a somewhat mashable consistency, but the resulting salsa was tasty with the fresh tomatoes, especially so when paired with the very tart tamarind chutney.

Finally, it was time to make the kulcha dough.  First, there was a preferment, made the night before.  No issues there.  Then, the following morning, it was time to add the remaining ingredients and let the dough rise for a final time before cooking.  Having recently, and successfully, made naan, I was ready to go.

Let’s just say that the first kulcha took one for the team.  It stuck firmly to a non-stick pan.


I went to Plan B, which was to use the naan cooking technique I had learned in August, a very similar technique, but with successful results.


However, 24 hours later, I remembered that I was supposed to sprinkle the dough with nigella seeds (stored in the refrigerator), so that was a fail. 

I didn’t screw up this challenge too badly, and the end results made a filling and delicious lunch. 


 

Join the Babes in September, and enjoy some delicious bread.  

 

 


 

 

6 comments:

Karen said...

Well, you made it! Yours looks fantastic!

Cathy (Bread Experience) said...

I don't think you messed up the challenge at all. Improvise and press on is the name of the game, right! And, I wouldn't worry about leaving off the nigella seeds, the seeds I added fell off the flatbreads anyway. ;)

hobby baker Kelly said...

Your first one may have taken one for the team, but the rest are gorgeous! My last one flipped its edges under when I plopped it down because it was a little bigger. I really need to find where I stuck my tamarind pulp!

Elizabeth said...

Ha. I always suspected that "non stick" was false advertising for those pans!

As Kelly already said, the rest of your kulcha look wonderful. Nice and bubbly. And fail? I think not! We had a big discussion about whether we would include chopped cilantro and nigella seeds. We were concerned they'd fall off.

Isn't tamarind chutney delicious?

Katie Zeller said...

I hate it when non-stick pans stick! But the results were great with the next pan, even without the seeds....

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

I don't think you messed up the Kulchas really. They look quite alright to me. It's not easy when trying your hand at something completely new.
While those seeds add some flavour, a Kulcha is pretty much a Kulcha even without them.