Chapoatty (Chapatti and Oat Breakfast Bars)

I had a chapatti phase in my life wherein it took over my diet for over 3 months. Chapatti Bread with lamb curry, chicken stir fry, with strawberry jam or a sausage, or anything edible within the 1 km radius. Chapatti is basically a thin Indian flatbread made from atta or chapatti wheat flour mixed with water, kneaded, and flattened into a circular disk, then cooked over a slightly concae griddle called tawa. I make my best chapatti bread at 2 am when my obsession with it took over my sleep (I am not one mental crazy chapatti maniac, I am just a frustrated baker.Sigh). Fine, more than a couple I’ve cheated and bought grocery ones, but there is a deep zenlike feeling of making your own bread from scratch. Well, I lived with an Indian family, and making Chapatti is as usual as making pancakes for them, as easy as a piece of cake. God, I cant even make a cake, much more perfect a Chapatti. I don’t know if it was my sneaky way of slipping in a healthy carbs in my diet or my sneaky way of slipping exercise in my lifestyle as getting a good dough would mean 15 minutes of solid wrestling with a huge ball of carbs. And then the art of making golf balls or chapattinis as I call them and then the mastery of rolling these chapattinis into a flat circular disk...like a razor thin tortilla.. mine looks like a map at first but after a couple of 2 am chapatti sessions I had made it more into an oblong. Then searing it into the Indian skillet “tawa”, waiting for the thin disk of dough to bubble up before flipping over. Indian Pancakes it is. Chapatti Bread is probably the less known cousin of Naan, and with the British fostering of Indian food, it was a bit heartbreaking that this little charm was never given its proper acclaim here. I, however, have divorced my monogamy with chapatti a few months ago, I need more sleep, as It would take me 2 hours before breakfast to prepare, and I just…well, it was my fault. I needed some space. And I need to grow. So we broke up. Chapatti and me. Good times though. Good carbs too.


Today, I was craving for a breakfast bar. Simple. Unpretentious. Healthy Bar.


I looked at the cupboard, and serendipitously locked my eyes with a long lost affair. I reckon, it wouldn’t hurt to have a reunion date. Chapatti flour and me in our post-break up hellos.


Got him outta there and mixed it with oat, and a mixture of milk and a bit of sugar (just a tiny bit), until it seems to be able to hold a shape. Made it into islets, and settled it into my sunflower butter greased tray. Took it in the oven. 40 minutes later, me being a virgin biscuit maker, had decided that it’s time for the most awaited kiss. Chapatti and me reunited with the third wheeler oats. Not bad. The biscuit’s way too tough for me, prolly way too much of that chapatti flour, but it has a surprisingly charming crumble and taste, the Chapatti flavour mixes well with the nutty oatty taste, and it filled me up, brought the rest to work and kept me off junk for the rest of the day. guess seeing exes are aryt, just not too much of them. Or else you ended up chewing much more than you would expect. Well, that shut my mouth off for half a day.