Photo Credit : AJ Photoartist/Ajay Menon

For as long as I remember I haven’t been fond of Chana Dal and I love anything that is crisp ! I have made excuses so that I don’t have to eat that particular dal despite a whole lot of effort from my mother.

But as I grew older and I tried many versions of it – a few that did seem better and something that I could probably get used to. But the one version I discovered when I moved to Bangalore and absolutely loved was the Kadale Bele Chutney / Chana Dal Chutney and I was finally a convert – I could eat a whole bowl of it, not just with Dosa or Idli but also with a chapati !

So for a while I was thinking of where I can fuse it into my baking since it is such a traditional Indian recipe. But then healthy baking for me has been largely about being able to incorporate as much of the local elements as I possibly can. What I also discovered while trying to dip a cracker ( yes, my love for the crisp) into the chutney and eat it was that there was a way to combine these.

That is when I decided to bring together this bake for the OpenOut event that I hosted at home.

For the Wholewheat Zero-Fat flatbread/Lavash

INGREDIENTS:

– Whole wheat flour: 2 cups

– Red chilly powder: 2 tsp

– Salt: 2 tsp

– Jeera powder : 1 tsp

– Warm water: 1 cup

– Black sesame seeds : 3 tsp

Add flour, salt, chilly, jeera powder and mix.

Add the black sesame seeds and mix through the dry mixture well so that it is uniformly present.

Add 1 cup of warm water and knead into a smooth soft dough. Cover with a damp muslin cloth and let the dough rest for 30 mins.

– Make small balls of the dough of uniform size.

– Dust them one at a time and roll it out into a round or square shape. Make sure to roll it out as thin as possible.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

Brush the baking tray lightly with oil.

Place the round / square on top of the tray and cut it into squares with a pizza cutter ( you can choose to make any other shape with cookie cutters too).

Bake for 10 to 12 mins or until light brown and crisp. Turn them around mid way to allow even browning on either side.

Take it out and cool completely.

For the Kadale Bele chutney ( I used this one as per our taste buds, if you have your own traditional recipe, feel free to use that).

Roast about 1/2 cup kadle bele or chana dal , 4 dry red chilies, 4-5 fenugreek/methi seeds, 3-4 curry leaves and 1 pinch of hing/asfoetida in 1 tsp oil. When this is roasted ( be careful not to burn it), cool it off well. Then dry grind it with 1/2 cup freshly grated coconut and 1 tsp of salt ( you can adjust this to your taste preference). Keep this aside.

To assemble – 

Once the flat bread pieces are baked through , with a spoon or knife spread the chutney on top of them and top it off with dry roasted peanuts. If you want to retain crispness, after the assembling place it into a preheated oven for 2 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius, before serving.