Ranette's Bara
curry-spiced flatbread for making Doubles
Ingredients
- 2 cups strong white bread flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Curry powder
- 1/2 tsp Turmeric
- 1 tsp Gheera cuminpowder
- 1 tsp instant yeast
- 1/3 Cup warm water
- 1/4 tsp Sugar
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, curry powder, turmeric and cumin.
- In a separate small bowl place the warm water, sugar and yeast, stir and leave to foam for 5 minutes.
- Add the yeast mixture to the flour to make a slightly firm dough. Knead it for 3 minutes and then place in an oiled bowl, covered with a damp cloth and allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours (in a warm place preferably, not in direct heat).
- When the dough has risen, take the dough and punch the air out of it on a floured surface.
- Divide the dough into 8-10 pieces and then shape each piece into a tight ball. Again place the dough balls under damp cloth and let it rest for 15 minutes.
- Then with a bowl of warm water, moisten your fingers take a dough ball and flatten it to a round base, 4 or 5 inches in diameter. The dough should still be moist at this time. You should be able to fit only 3 in the frying pan to give you an idea of their size.
- Take a frying pan and fill it with 2" of oil. Heat the oil to a medium - high heat.
- Place 3 of the bara's in the oil, it should take no more than 30 seconds to cook each side, the bara. Place the bara in a warm oven while you fry the rest.
Notes
my bara ended up much thicker than what I've seen while researching Doubles, and took more like 45-50 seconds per side to fry. They were great, but not quite what I was expecting. Perhaps I should have spread the dough thinner, though I spread it quite thin. Perhaps I kneaded the dough too long and the gluten chains caused it to spring back too quickly. Perhaps the dough was just too stiff and needed to be wetter, though I ended up adding quite a bit more water than Ranette's recipe called for. I was quite pleased with these substantial and delicious flatbreads, but they're different from the tortilla-like products you'll see in the video below.