ashu’s food photography | ashstylegourmet's Blog

For me traveling to different places necessarily also includes tasting the local cuisine and getting to know the names of their food dishes. During my recent Budapest visit, one of the days we ate at the local street food restaurant and the sight and taste of their flatbread totally made me think of our very own Bhaturas. They called it Lángos, it is the Hungarian street food that is a deep-fried flat bread made using refined flour, yeast, water or milk. They also use potato and sour cream or yogurt to make this and the name changes accordingly.

Through this post I wished to highlight the similarities of the breads that go by different names in two different countries, which are geographically far away from each other. In North India we have our Bhaturas that are made using refined flour and yogurt (I make use of this). I have been observing this very fascinating food fact about breads in different countries that I have traveled so far. The basic ingredients of the breads is very much common around most parts. (You can check out my older post about the Georgian bread here.)

Sharing my Bhatura recipe and also the pictures of the Hungarian street food from my recent travels.

BHATURAS

INGREDIENTS:

Refined Flour: 250 gm

Sour curd: 100 ml

Ajwain/Carom seeds: 1 Tsp

Water: 100 ml

Salt: 1 Tsp

Cooking oil: for frying

METHOD:

Take the refined flour and add the salt and Ajwain to it and mix. Add the curd and mix well, we get a lumpy flour mix.

Using the water make a loose dough, it will be sticky. Use some oil to prevent it from sticking to the palm and make a round ball and keep this in the bowl and cover with kitchen towel. Keep this bowl in a warm place for 2-3 hours. For these bhaturas I do not keep the dough in warm place over night. I prefer the taste and flavor of the bhaturas with short leavening time. (had seen a north Indian friend keep the dough overnight and then made the bhaturas).

Note: (I prefer to make them a bit smaller than the regular bhaturas seen in restaurants as then I do not need to pour too much oil in the Kadai for frying. It is not a healthy habit to keep the leftover heated oil for reuse)

Heat cooking oil in a Kadai and deep fry the rolled out bhaturas until they become puffed up golden on both side. Pressing them with the fry ladle skimmer while frying in oil helps to puff them up.

These were served hot with spicy masala chole.

Hungarian Lángos

Sharing below pictures that I clicked of the Hungarian Lángos displayed in the restaurant in Budapest.

ashu’s photography-Lángos with sour cream and cheese

ashu’s photography-Lángos with Chicken Goulash

This plate of the bread with the chicken goulash was very tasty, very close to my cooking style and taste preference. We enjoyed tasting this new dish and loved our dinner at this Budapest restaurant that evening.

I hope you all liked this post as much as I loved cooking the bhaturas and writing and sharing the pictures with you all here.

Enjoy home cooking and eating with the family at the dinning table and create memories 🙂

ashu

ashu’s new recipe– PRAWNS POTLI- my tribute for my elder brother.

The flow of life is ever changing, making us drift along with it, sweeping us through its different waves and giving us the moments, emotions, and experiences that one may not always be ready to accept or deal with. But one does learn to sail through if we allow ourselves to accept and adapt. It is in our hands how we handle each and every moment that we have to face on a day-to-day basis.

This post is made in memory of and as my fond remembrance of my eldest sibling whom we lost this month. The loss of our loved ones leaves a huge vacuum and fills us with grief, I have been dealing with my share of this emotion. But it would be wrong to let grief overtake the memories and good times that were shared, one should be celebrating the sibling bond and the strength it imparts. As I look back and lovingly cherish the journey I shared as his younger sibling, remembering all the positives that I got to learn from him, I decided to cook a new recipe in his honor as my tribute and respect towards him.

He was a big time foodie, and as I reflect back to my childhood days, he was the influence I think that might have pushed me to this hobby of cooking and learning new recipes. He was the connoisseur of food of our family, loved different cuisines, and introduced us siblings to restaurant foods and knew the best food joints/places in the home town while we were growing up and later too, and also at the same time was the most dreaded critic of our cooking, the cooks of the house, even until the recent days. He was a perfect event manager, menu planner for any functions or marriages that happened in the household.

It is this foodie nature of his that I want to cherish forever and sharing a part of him with you all by the above writing about him. As he loved non-vegetarian food, hence I decided to try something new using Prawns.

PRAWNS POTLI

INGREDIENTS:

For The Dough:

Refined Flour: 200 gm

Fine Semolina: 100 gm

Salt: 1 pinch

Water: 100 ml ( or as much-needed to make soft dough)

For The Filling/Stuffing:

Prawns: 500 gm

Onion: 1 Medium-to-small

Green Chilies: 2 (or add as per personal taste)

Green Coriander: 2 Tbsp (few sprigs)

Cumin: 1 Tsp

Salt & Pepper: as per taste for seasoning.

Cooking Oil- As required for Frying

METHOD:

Put the refined flour, semolina and a pinch of salt in a glass bowl or any bowl and mix together. Adding water to this mix make a soft dough and keep it covered until we prepare the prawns filling. Before using the dough we should knead it well.

Clean and devein the prawns, wash and pat them completely dry with a napkin or kitchen tissue roll.

Coarsely grind the onion, green chili, coriander, cumin, and the Prawns in a mixer pot or food processor pot. Add the salt and crushed peppercorns. We do not want the prawn flesh to become gooey, but remain smaller chunks. (For the initial Potli’s I had used this uncooked raw filling, but the wet content leaked and oil spluttered. )

Heat a fry pan/Kadai and add 1 tsp oil (just to avoid food sticking) and then add this ground mix and saute so that the prawns get slightly cooked and all extra liquid if any gets completely dried away. This will be our filling for the Potli.

Knead the flour dough well to get a softer dough. We can use a drop or two of oil to avoid the dough from sticking to our palm.

Make small round balls of the dough and roll out thin circular discs as seen in the picture below. Place little amount of filling and bring the ends closer, twisting and tightening together towards the center. Make sure to seal it in center and leave the ends free so that it resembles a Potli.

Once the Potli’s are ready, heat a thick bottomed pan or Kadai and pour oil in it for frying. As the oil heats, slowly we slide the Potli’s into the hot oil and deep fry first keeping the flame of the stove on high and later making it to medium heat. The Potli’s should be fried to golden brown, reducing the heat ensures the ends become crispy .

The frying part needs our attention and demands more patience from us. If any water from the prawns makes the filling wet, and if the ends are not properly sealed then the liquid oozes out into the hot oil, making it splutter and also burns the oil. Hence try to avoid any water/liquid in the filling. Initially I had not used cooked filling, but the raw coarsely ground prawns and the water from the onion and prawns made the oil splutter and hence I pan dried the water. Avoid cooking the filling for long, Prawn flesh is delicate and we do not want to make it rubber textured.

As you can see my potli’s are of different shapes and sizes, more patience required in future I guess 🙂 .

We can make all the round discs first, later fill the filling and seal the ends, and thus make and keep the potlis to fry together. Or one could make it in batches of 3-4 and simultaneously fry while making. Do as per your convenience 🙂 .

I preferred to keep the prawn filling simple. The sweetness of the prawns, the heat from the green chili, the fresh herb taste and dash of the cumin and freshly ground peppercorns, perfect taste with each bite of the potli. Also note, it is better we make the potli’s smaller in size, they puff up a bit while frying and we can get perfectly sized ones to hold and which can be finished up in a bite or two. We need to fry them to perfection so that the outer ends are crispy and the bottom part is medium soft to bite into.

Serving Options: I used store-bought Tomato and Chili sauces as dips to serve with the Prawns Potli. We could also serve it with a hot and tangy green chutney.

I am feeling happy as I share this recipe that I made with love and affection for my brother, in his memory and in the process doing my bit to carry on the legacy of introducing new foods and recipes with the folks who are part of my life and also with those who cross my path.

Enjoy and stay content doing whatever that makes you happy 🙂 .

ashu