Kalai Ruti

Rajshahi flatbreads of black gram and rice flour slapped out by hand and baked on a clay griddle, served with a fiery bharta of chilli, onion, and mustard oil

Origin: Chapai Nawabganj & Rajshahi, Bangladesh

From the journey of Black Gram.

Kalai ruti is the bread of Chapai Nawabganj and Rajshahi, in the north-west of Bangladesh: a thick, slightly chewy, pale grey flatbread made mostly from mashkalai, black gram flour, with some rice flour, patted out by hand rather than rolled, and baked on a shallow earthenware griddle over a wood or straw fire. It is eaten hot, usually on a winter morning or evening, with a bharta of crushed green or dried chillies, raw onion, salt, and mustard oil, and often with a beef or duck curry. The region is the old Varendra, the high, dry red-soil tract north of the Padma, and it grows black gram where the lower, wetter delta grows rice. The bread belongs to that country, and for most of its history it was a village food. Over the past decade or so kalai ruti stalls have opened in Dhaka and other cities, and it has become a regional speciality that people in Rajshahi are proud to see outside it. The skill is in the hands. The dough is soft and has almost no gluten, so it cannot be rolled; the maker slaps it back and forth between wet palms into a round, and lays it on the hot clay. The clay griddle, the khola, gives it the faintly smoky, dry-baked surface that a metal pan does not.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 300 g black gram flour (mashkalai flour)
  • 100 g rice flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 350 ml hot water, approximately

Bharta

  • 8 whole green chillies, or 4 dried red chillies, charred
  • 1 whole red onion, very finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp mustard oil
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

Method

  1. Mix the two flours and the salt, pour in the hot water gradually, and work into a soft, smooth dough. Knead for five minutes and leave covered for 10 minutes.
  2. For the bharta, crush the charred chillies with the salt in a bowl, then mix in the onion, mustard oil, and coriander.
  3. Heat a heavy clay griddle or a cast-iron pan over a medium heat.
  4. Divide the dough into eight balls. Wet your hands and flatten each ball by slapping it gently back and forth between your palms, turning it as you go, into a round about 1 cm thick and 13 cm across.
  5. Lay a ruti on the hot griddle and cook for three to four minutes, then turn and cook for three to four minutes more, until it has dry brown spots on both sides and sounds hollow when tapped.
  6. Serve at once with the bharta, and with a beef or duck curry if you like.

Notes

Mashkalai flour is sold in Bangladeshi grocers; urad dal flour from an Indian grocer is the same pulse and works well. Kalai ruti is best eaten hot. It firms up quickly as it cools. Other bhartas served with it include aubergine, tomato, and dried fish.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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