Dal - Bati or Dal - Rota

Dal Bati or Dal-Rota is a favourite dish of Rajasthan and Gujrat in India. They can be plain, in which nothing is stuffed or there are stuffed dal-bati in which some masala is stuffed.
Besan Stuffed Roti / Paratha |Cauliflower Potato Corn Roti |Potato Poori

Plain Dal Bati, Dal Rota

Recipe type: Fatfree, cholesterol free
Preparation time: 60 minute
Ingredients:
For Bati:

• Whole wheat flour, 2 cups
• Salt, 1/4 tsp or to taste
• Yeast, 1/2 tsp
• (Optional) Ghee/butter, 1/2 cup

For Dal:

• 3/4 cup Mung Dal, unwashed (with skin)
• 1/4 Tbsp Chana Dal
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 green Chili, chopped
• 1" ginger root, grated
• 2 Tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped
• 4 cups water
• 2 tsp fresh lime juice

Spices:

• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 small grain Hing (Asafoateda)
• salt to taste

Preparation

Bati

• Mix all ingredients (except ghee/butter) and make very stiff dough. Cover and keep for an hour.
• Kneed to a smooth and round shape dough. Make small balls (called batis) from dough of about 1.5 inch diameter (size in between a ping-pong ball and a tennis ball).
• Place all the balls in an oven, preheated to a temperature of 200 deg C, reduce the temperature to 125 deg C and bake the batis until they get cracked and turn to light brown color, about 30-40 minutes. Switch off the oven.
• Take out 2 batis at a time and crush them to small pieces. Add a small quantity of melted ghee/butter and mix well.

Dal

• Mix dals and wash thoroughly. Soak in water for about 1 hour.
• Take water in a deep skillet, add dals, onion, tomato, ginger, green chili and all the spices. Put the skillet on medium heat, cover 3/4th with a lid and let the ingredients cook till the dals become soft, about 20 minutes. With a table spoon stir with a pressure on the sides of the skillet all the ingredients well so that the dals mix well in water to make the consistency thick. Remove the skillet from the heat and mix the lime juice and coriander leaves.

Serve hot batis with hot dal and a smalll quantity of fresh chopped onions.

Tips:

1. The finished dal should not be too thin or too thick. Its consistency should be like that of tomato soup.
2. If you like very crisp bati, resuce the oven temperature to 100 deg C and bake for a longer time.
3. If the batis become very hard, put them in microwave oven for a couple of seconds.
4. Traditionally, batis are eaten with a lot of ghee. But they taste very good even without ghee or butter. If you can't resist taking ghee, try 'you can't believe it is not butter' instead.