Indian Back to Basic: Thalipeeth

A hearty breakfast of Thalipeeth, 'LONI', Tea
This post is dedicated to my dearest friend (I do not need to take her name, she is the only one with a gluten free diet).

Thalipeeth takes us back to our roots in rural India. Every family has their own way of making a 'Thalipeeth Bajani', rather it depends from individual to individual about what grains they want to add to Thalipeeth. It serves as an excellent breakfast, or even a quick lunch with lots of veggies, homemade white butter on the side and a glass of butter milk. Offlate I have been using my mom's method of using a plastic carry bag to pat the dough, and a cast iron pan to roast it with enough oil.

I have been making Thalipeeth from the flour that my mom had made for me during my last India visit 6 months back. However, now it will be my next challenge to make it at home here in the US. I will typically have to depend on the ingredients on the Indian stores here, and of course the quality of ingredients. There are ready made Thalipeeth flour as well, however, I would not be quite inclining towards it.

By the way, here is a list of ingredients my mother typically adds to make the flour:

Wheat (can skip to make it gluten free), Bajra, Rice, Jowar, Finger Millet (Ragi), Moong beans, Matki beans, Coriander seeds, Sesame Seeds, Chana Dal. Everything is roasted on slow flame and taken to the flour mill for grinding. Of course it can be done at home as well. The flour is super fine like chapati flour. I typically add lots of onions, carrots (or any other vegetable you might think would go well with the Thalipeeth, something like grated cabbage) lots of coriander (cilantro), red chilli powder(I stick to Kashmiri Red Chilli powder since it is mild and suits our toddlers taste), turmeric, coriander powder, cumin powder and salt. Not too many ingredients otherwise it will kill the actualy taste of the flour. Also important is that, the onion ratio is more to the flour, only than they come out nice and crispy. But if anyone likes it soft, it is upto them!


this is how my mom makes it with those three holes in between, it just makes it more crispy!

my rusty iron skillet (yeah, the coating is off now)


Confession: I havnt had enough patience lately to edit any of the pictures, hence I am uploading them in whatever state they were clicked!


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