Spicyana

Chilly Crepes

The multilayered Indian flat bread popularly known as Porotta (or Parotta) in South India, is one of the most difficult Indian flat breads to master, that is probably why the expert porotta chefs are known as “Porotta masters” in the country. By evening roadside eateries in rural and urban South India transforms into dimly lit stages for an amazing exhibition of craft and training, using which countless “masters” rhythmically beat, stretch and spin the dough followed by throwing and flattening of the dough in the air and finally winding everything down together as a fine multilayered parotta.. The street- food shops contributed so much to the evolution and popularization of Indo-Chinese fusion cuisine by creating signature dishes like chilly porotta and egg porotta, which eventually found their well deserved spots even in modish restaurant menus. Chopped parotta pieces are stir fried with plenty of onions, spring onions, ginger, garlic and a very limited amount of green chilies to create chilly porotta. Often made to order, preparation of this dish is a joy to watch. Chilly parotta is not too darned hot to carry a chilly in the name, but it looks like a red chilly explosion served on a plate, thanks to the dash of red food color added by most of the chefs.

In this deconstructed version of chilly parotta which we named as chilly crepes, I have used shredded pieces of crepe as the base instead of porotta , and followed the rest of the recipe for making the original, substituting food color with tomato puree. Crepes (or use thin Indian style pancakes) are shredded (just tear it off, if you please) and then baked or rather dehydrated for a while to resemble the texture of fine parotta shreds before stir frying with the rest of the ingredients. . It tastes so much like chilly parotta, and is way too easy to make. I have always been an ardent admirer of both the simple and the knotty techniques of the “dough” and would love to learn the art of making the dough fly someday, but for now I am off to try out Annita’s creative and relatively simple technique for making a restaurant like porotta in a home kitchen. That recipe is a true winner, hats off to you Annita.
This is my entry to Barbara of Tigers and Strawberrys’ Spice is right event, not hot enough for the occasion, but there is at least a chilly in the name.

Tags bread Indian crepes spicy chilly

Crepes

1 cup flour
½ tsp oil
1 egg
Salt – to taste
Water – 1 cup

Mix everything together to make a thin batter ( add more water if needed) Keep for 10 minutes. Heat a small non-stick pan, wipe with oil. Pour a ladleful of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly ( or work with the botton of the ladle). Cook for one minute and flip. Cook for another 10 seconds and remove from the fire.. Make crepes with the rest of the batter and cool it. Tear the crepes into bite size pieces, spread on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil and bake at 300 F for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature.

* You can make this without adding egg


Making of Chilly Porotta

Shredded crepes – 2 cups
Onions – 1 – cut into medium size squares
Green Onions – chopped ½ cup
Celery – Finely chopped – 1 tbsp
Or Celery seeds – ¼ tsp
Tomatoe sauce or puree – ½ cup
Green chilles cut into thin rounds – 1/2 tsp
Ginger finely chopped – 1 ½ tsp
Garlic finely chopped _ 11/2 tsp
Green bell pepper – cut into medium size squares 1 cup
Soy sauce – ¼ tsp
Salt to taste
Oil – 2 tsp

Heat oil in a pan (preferably a wok) till very hot, add onions, celery and sauté for a minute. Add ginger, garlic, green chillies, bell peppers and sauté for 2 minutes. Add tomatoe sauce , soy sauce stir for 30 seconds. Add crepe pieces, spring onions and stir fry, till the pieces are all covered with the spice mixture and dry. Serve hot with raitha or any other yogurt based salad.

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