thick, rustic, hand-patted rounds of pearl millet flour cooked on a griddle until nutty and speckled, the winter bread of Gujarat and Rajasthan, eaten with white butter, jaggery, and garlic chutney
Origin: India
From the journey of Millet.
Pearl millet crossed from Africa to India in deep antiquity, and in the hot, dry north-west it found a second homeland; as bajra it became the staple bread grain of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Haryana, the grain that could be grown where wheat could not. Bajra na rotla (in Gujarat) or bajra roti (in the north) is its daily bread: a thick, rustic, gluten-free flatbread of coarse grey-brown pearl millet flour, mixed with hot water into a soft dough and patted out by hand, for without gluten it cannot be rolled thin like a wheat chapati. Cooked on a hot griddle (tava) and finished over the open flame until it puffs and chars in spots, the rotla is dense, hearty, and deeply nutty. It is the winter bread above all, eaten hot with a knob of fresh white butter and a lump of jaggery (gor), with a fierce garlic chutney (lasan ni chutney), with kadhi, or with the spiced aubergine of Gujarat's olo and ringna no olo. Filling and warming, bajra na rotla is the everyday bread of the dry north-western countryside, the African grain made wholly Indian.
Bajra (pearl millet) flour is sold at Indian grocers; it has no gluten, so the dough is shaped by hand, not rolled. Some cooks add a little jowar (sorghum) or wheat flour to make it easier to handle, though the purest rotla is all bajra. Eat it hot, as it stiffens on cooling. Classic accompaniments include lasan ni chutney (garlic chutney), white butter, jaggery, kadhi, and spiced mashed aubergine (olo).
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