Breakfast
Soft whole-wheat flatbread cooked on a tawa — a Kerala breakfast and dinner staple with curry or thoran.
About
Chapathi (Malayalam: ചപ്പാത്തി; also chapati, chapatti, roti, or phulka) is an unleavened whole-wheat bread of the Indian subcontinent. Atta and water are kneaded, rested, rolled thin, cooked on a tawa, and often finished over a flame so the disc puffs. Malayalam Wikipedia treats it as a North Indian staple that Kerala kitchens adopted as roti. English Wikipedia notes that wheat was not Kerala’s grain until Sikh activists ran a langar of chapati during the Vaikom Satyagraha of 1924; rice still dominates, but many homes now eat chapathi for one meal a day. It is served hot with egg curry, vegetable kurma, thoran, or kadala curry.
The dough is atta — chakki-milled whole wheat — mixed with water, about 60 to 80 percent of the flour’s weight. Salt (roughly 0.5 to 2 percent) and a little oil are optional; there is no yeast. English Wikipedia records common wheat as the usual grain; durum is blended in some regions. Malayalam Wikipedia names the same three ingredients: wheat flour, salt, and water. The Persian word chapati, “flat wheat bread,” is the source of the Malayalam name.
Knead by hand for ten to fifteen minutes until the dough is firm and elastic, then rest thirty minutes to two hours. Pinch balls of 25 to 40 grams, dust with flour, and roll to a circle about 10–18 cm across and 2–3 mm thick. Throw the disc onto a hot dry tawa (about 200–220 °C), cook both sides for a minute or two, then hold it over a flame or coals so steam inflates it — that puffed bread is a phulka. Pressure with a cloth on the tawa can puff it without the flame. Eat it at once; it stales within a few hours.
Chapathi is the centre of the plate: tear a piece and pick up curry, dal, or a dry vegetable. Ghee or butter is often spread on top while it is hot. Kerala tables pair it with egg curry, vegetable kurma, carrot or cabbage thoran, kadala curry, or cherupayar curry. English Wikipedia lists curries, sabzi, stews, and chutneys as the wider Indian plate. Leftovers harden quickly; some kitchens mash stale bread for children or feed it to cattle.
Phulka is the flame-puffed form; a rotli is a thinner Gujarati disc. Related wheat breads use the same atta but different heat: paratha is layered, poori is deep-fried, tandoori roti is baked in a clay oven. English Wikipedia records a Kerala rice-flour disc called podi-patthiri, served with coconut milk — thinner than wheat chapathi and distinct from Malabar pathiri. East African chapati is fried in oil and closer to paratha than to this tawa bread. South Indian homes often keep chapathi to one meal a day, with rice still the other.
Gallery
How it is steamed, served, and varied — open any image for a larger view.
7 photos
More dishes
Other famous plates from Kerala’s kitchen.